Deputy Treasury Secretary says U.S. is close to finalizing a few trade deals before the July 9 deadline

On Monday, Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender said that the Trump administration is making “good progress” on trade negotiations and is “close to the finish line on a couple” of deals.

He told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that as long as talks move forward, “you’re going to see a lot more deals that are announced prior to that July 9 time frame.”

On April 9, President Donald Trump paused reciprocal tariffs on most U.S. trade partners for 90 days, delaying the steep levies until early July.

At the time, the administration announced a goal to close “90 deals in 90 days.” Nearly two months later, the White House has only finalized an agreement with Britain. Despite that, senior Trump advisers say they do not plan to extend the 90-day deadline.

Faulkender said the White House wants “to conclude as many of these discussion as we can” before the pause ends, adding that negotiations “are sometimes complicated.”

He explained that they aim “to reach at least terms of an agreement prior to the expiration of that pause,” and as long as trade partners “make progress and demonstrate goodwill, we will continue to make progress towards announcing those deals.”

He added, “We look to make announcements and bring some resolution, both to the American people and to markets, as quickly as we can.”

Major U.S. stock indexes opened lower Monday, weighed down by investor concerns over rising trade tensions between the U.S. and China.

The tariff-driven trade war between Washington and Beijing appeared to ease last month following talks in Switzerland, but heated up again last week. The Trump administration accused China of violating a preliminary trade agreement by delaying its pledge to resume exporting critical minerals to the United States.

On Monday, China rejected those claims and countered that the U.S. had undermined the Geneva deal by imposing new restrictions on Chinese student visas, among other measures.

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said last Tuesday that the administration does not want to “harm Apple” with tariffs.

He said, “Everybody is trying to make it seem like it’s a catastrophe if there’s a tiny little tariff on them right now, to try to negotiate down the tariffs. In the end, we’ll see what happens, we’ll see what the update is, but we don’t want to harm Apple.”

Hassett’s comments followed a social media post by President Trump, in which the president said that Apple will have to pay a tariff of 25% or more for iPhones made outside the U.S. Apple has traditionally manufactured its products in countries such as China, India and Vietnam.

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