US hunt for 90 trade agreements in 90 days: « Completely unlikely »
US President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that the United States is pausing most trade tariffs for 90 days. The message arrived a week after the customs were first announced on April 2. According to Donald Trump, countries now have 90 days to negotiate new agreements with the United States. For the White House, this means that the Trump administration will receive 90 trade agreements during the same time frame, Reuters writes.
Jan Hallenberg, professor emeritus in political science, does not believe that it is possible to conclude 90 trade agreements within the short time frame.
– These are complicated things. It is not just about tariffs but also about non-dull-based barriers to trade.
Under Donald Trumps In the first term of office, it took eight months to reach an agreement with South Korea on vehicles and steel in the two countries’ free trade agreements, Reuters writes. The extensive trade agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada was negotiated for two years.
If the work is distributed to different advisors and negotiators, the time frame may be shortened, according to Jan Hallenberg. But Peter Navarro who is the Administration Trade Advisor also the president’s economic guru Says in an interview with Fox News that Donald Trump himself should act as chief negotiator in all agreements.
– Nothing is done without him looking at it very carefully, he says.
The trade adviser says he believes in the administration’s schedule in the interview.
Another challenge is that the US Finance Department is currently quite thinly manned. Several key roles in the Ministry have not yet been appointed and employees are busy with other assignments – such as RO in port a mineral agreement with Ukraine. The government’s trade representative has said that his staff, consisting of 200 people, work around the clock for various proposals to be sent back and forth between countries.
When EU Trade Manager Marcos Sefcovic comes to Washington for negotiations on Monday, he will not meet US finance minister and foremost trade negotiator, Scott Bessent, despite the EU being one of US more important trading partners. Bessent will be in Argentina to show its support for the country’s economic reform.
Jan Hallenberg believes that the administration may be able to complete about 20 trade agreements. He adds that this is not the first time Trump promised great things with short time schedules – which has not been completed.
– He would broke peace in the Ukraine war in 24 hours.
If the plan goes in the cast it may be relevant to extend the break for the trade agreements that have not yet been, according to experts that Reuters talked to.
According to Jan Hallenberg, there is a high probability that an agreement with China and the EU, which are some of the US’s more important trading partners, will have to wait. Instead, poorer countries with an economic interest in the United States are expected to be more keen to agree with the Trump administration.
The agreements that Jan Hallenberg believes that the Americans manage to complete will be highlighted as phenomenal – a way to hide that the administration may not keep what it promised.
– This is another promise that will be difficult to implement in practice, he says.
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