Trump: The new tariff rates will be notified to various countries as early as July 4th

US President Trump said that he might start sending notification letters to trading partners as early as Friday (July 4th) to determine how much equivalent tariffs the US will impose on them.

According to reports from Reuters and Bloomberg, Trump told reporters on Thursday (the 3rd) as he left Washington: "We may start sending letters to our trading partners from tomorrow, perhaps ten a day, directly telling them how much tariff they have to pay to do business with the United States."

Trump's grace period for reciprocal tariffs will expire on July 9.

Trump admitted that negotiating with over 170 countries was complicated. Before going to Iowa to attend an event, he said that these letters would be sent in batches to 10 countries each time, and the tariff rates would be listed in the letters, such as 20% to 30% tariffs.

He said, "With so many 170 countries, how many negotiations can be completed?" These agreements are very complicated.

Trump just announced a trade deal with Vietnam on Wednesday (the 2nd). He expects the United States to reach more specific agreements with "two or three more" countries.

However, he said that he preferred to skip the cumbersome negotiations and directly inform most countries and regions of their specific tariff rates.

Trump had previously threatened that if countries failed to reach an agreement with the United States by July 9, he would directly set tariff rates, which would put more pressure on those trading partners who were eager to reach an agreement with the United States.

The Trump administration announced in early April this year that it would impose high unilateral reciprocal tariffs on many countries and regions. Subsequently, it announced a 90-day suspension of the implementation of reciprocal tariffs, giving these trading partners time to negotiate with the United States and imposing a 10% benchmark tariff on them during the grace period.

On July 2nd, Trump announced that he had reached a trade agreement with Su Lin, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, under which the United States would reduce tariffs on Vietnamese products to 20%. In exchange, the Vietnamese market will be fully open to the United States.

This is the third trade agreement announced by the United States following the earlier framework agreement with the United Kingdom and the interim agreement on mutual tariff reduction with China.