‘We can do what we want’

President Donald Trump said on Friday that he may not stick to the deadline in early July when massive American prices should fall back on a series of countries.

“No, we can do what we want,” Trump said in the White House when asked if his deadline was fixed in stone. “We could extend it. We could do it shorter.”

The question had been specifically towards July 9, the deadline for the United States and the European Union to negotiate a trade agreement or to trigger a 50% rate on EU imports to take effect.

But the president’s response seemed to refer to a deadline of July 8 when a three-month break from his “reciprocal prices” self-written to several nations ends, returning the specific rate rates to the country to their initial and much higher levels.

Despite Trump’s apparent flexibility in terms of dates, the decree he signed on April 9 is not flexible unless it is officially updated.

This prescription reduced specific prices to Trump’s country at a rate of 10% at all levels for 90 days, and said that temporary stay would only last three months.

Unless Trump revises his order, the radical prices will return to their external prices in 12 days.

This could have a major impact on a multitude of American trade partners, and may repeat the global economic disorders that Trump triggered when he announced the initial rate rates on April 2.

The countries were blind by massive import rights – some of up to almost 50% – that Trump deployed what he called the “Liberation Day”.

What immediately followed were very volatile markets and criticisms and alarm from investors, world leaders and importers. A week later, Trump announced a 90 -day break on new prices.

The White House initially suggested in April that it would prevent individual trade agreements with dozens of countries during the intermediate months.

But with less than two remaining weeks during the 90-day temporary period, the White House has so far only concluded limited trade agreements with China and the United Kingdom.

These two transactions were described as more similar to executives than to finalized transactions. The Beijing Ministry of Trade said earlier on Friday that China and the United States had confirmed the business framework details that the two parties had accepted in previous talks.

“We have concluded an agreement with probably four or five different countries,” said Trump on Friday, but “we have 200 countries, you could say 200 countries more”, on the list of specific pricing objectives from April.

“So, at some point, in about next and a half week, or perhaps before, we will send a letter, we talked to many countries, and we will just tell them what they have to pay for business in the United States, and that will go very quickly,” said Trump.

Trump’s latest comments have followed other recent suggestions from administration officials that July’s tariff deadlines are fluid.

“Maybe it could be extended, but this is a decision to make for the president,” said the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday.

At the end of May, a federal commercial court canceled the prices, judging that the law that Trump invoked to impose them did not grant him the authority he affirmed. But a federal court of appeal interrupted this decision to take effect.