


The White House confirmed the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative sent a letter to the country’s trading partners before President Donald Trump‘s Liberation Day tariffs take effect on July 9.
“USTR sent this letter to all of our trading partners just to give them a friendly reminder that the deadline is coming up,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday.
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After Trump announced the 90-day pause in imposing his Liberation Day tariffs, his trade adviser, Peter Navarro, promised the administration would sign 90 trade deals in 90 days. So far, only one, with the United Kingdom, has been made public.
With a little more than a month before the new deadline, Leavitt said on Tuesday that U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick are “in talks with many of our key trading partners around the globe.”
“Each country has unique advantages, unique challenges to it, based on their markets and what they export to us and what we export to them,” she said. “That’s why the president smartly advised his trade team to engage in tailor-made deal-making. We saw that with the United Kingdom, and we will see that with other countries as well.”
Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs were briefly blocked last week by the U.S. Court of International Trade following lawsuits from businesses and a coalition of Democratic-led states. But another court allowed Trump’s signature trade and foreign policy to proceed as the legal fight continues.
Leavitt also defended Trump’s tariff policy after the stock market backlash and amid concerns about the economic uncertainty they have created.
“The president has been very direct to our trading partners in his conversations with them, with foreign leaders directly, that they need to cut deals with the United States of America,” she said. “As you’ve all seen, he’s unafraid to use tariffs to protect our industries and protect our workers, but he wants to see these tailor-made deals be signed.”
To that end, Trump’s increase in steel and aluminum tariffs is scheduled to go into effect on Wednesday. The president’s metal duties were originally 25%, and are not affected by the court challenge since they were introduced under the national security section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.
“The president will be signing that executive order today, and steel and aluminum tariffs will be going to 50%,” Leavitt added. “He made that announcement in Pennsylvania, and he plans to deliver on that promise to Pennsylvanians.”