OAN Staff James Meyers
10:23 AM – Friday, May 16, 2025
President Donald Trump announced Friday that the White House will be informing other countries about how much they will be tariffed via letters and what they will be required to pay on exported goods to the United States.
Trump said the move is necessary because negotiations are taking too long to discuss one-on-one agreements with each individual nation affected by the tariffs.
“We have, at the same time, 150 countries that want to make a deal, but you’re not able to see that many countries,” Trump said at a business roundtable in the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
Advertisement“So at a certain point, over the next two to three weeks, I think [Treasury Secretary] Scott [Bessent] and [Commerce Secretary] Howard [Lutnick] will be sending letters out, essentially telling people –- we’ll be very fair –- but we’ll be telling people what they’ll be paying to do business in the United States.”
On April 2nd, Trump announced sweeping tariffs across 150 countries, claiming he put the rates in effect to help levies on U.S. products.
A week later he paused tariffs for 90 days on April 9th, to allow time for trade talks, but kept in place a baseline rate of 10% for all other countries apart from China.
Since then, the Trump administration has announced major tentative deals with the U.K., leaving the 10% tariff in place and opening up expansion into Britain’s agriculture market to American products. As for China, the U.S. lowered its levies on the country to 30%, while the Chinese rate on American goods fell to 10%.
Additionally, the latest U.K. deal exempts 100,000 British-made cars from Trump’s new 25% global auto tariff, making them subject to the 10% rate instead, while eliminating tariffs on U.K. airplane parts.
The 47th president said earlier this week that his relationship with Beijing is “very, very good.”
“I’ll speak with President Xi [Jinping] maybe at the end of the week,” Trump told reporters at the time, adding that “to me, the biggest thing that came out of that meeting is they’ve agreed — now we have to get it papered — but they’ve agreed to open up China.”
Meanwhile, the 25% tariff on cars, aluminum and steel will remain in effect on the communist nation.
Furthermore, trade adviser Peter Navarro told reporters earlier this month that U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer is scheduled up until July for meetings with other countries to have trade talks, hinting that more deals could be on the horizon.
Trump administration officials stated that the 10% U.K. deal would serve as a “template” for all other countries’ future deals.
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