The market’s task of planning for how tariff developments will play out this summer got more complicated Friday as President Trump and his team offered a host of options for what to expect in the months ahead.
First, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent raised eyebrows when he suggested that his focus could be on an end-of-summer deadline, saying, “I think we could have trade wrapped up by Labor Day.”
But any hopes for a summer lull between now and then were short-lived when, just a few hours later, Trump offered multiple other scenarios during a wide-ranging press conference.
At one point, the president reiterated his plan to send letters to dictate tariff rates for at least some countries, perhaps as soon as next week, saying, “It’s going to go very quickly.”
Minutes later, he said that a July 9 deadline to raise “reciprocal” tariffs is not set and perhaps could move, but in an unpredictable direction.
“We can do whatever we want,” he told reporters of that deadline. “We could extend it, we could make it shorter,” adding that his preference was to make it shorter.
Trump then capped things off with a social media post in the early afternoon announcing he was “terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately” over digital taxes.
“We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period,” he added.
The issue for Trump on this front appears to be a 3% tax on technology companies that Canada implemented a year ago but set to start collecting payments on Monday on technology companies operating in Canada and doing things like collecting user data.
Later Friday afternoon, Trump linked the issue with similar taxes on technology companies in Europe, which have long rankled the president.
He suggested Canada was copying Europe and said “we have such power over Canada” suggesting to reporters that Canada could restart talks by removing the tax.
President Trump answers questions during a press conference in the briefing room at the White House on June 27. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) ·Joe Raedle via Getty Images
It all comes as the administration faces a series of deadlines in the weeks ahead, from that July 9 date to strike “reciprocal” trade deals to an early August deadline for progress with China and Bessent’s new end-of-summer deadline to wrap things up.
The immediate effect of Trump’s surprise announcement on Canada, which pushed stocks slightly down and off record high levels, was unclear, with the president saying new tariffs there could be coming in a week’s time but with overall talks with America’s closest neighbors on yet another track.
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The key date in those talks with both Canada and Mexico are often focuses on next summer, when the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) faces a renewal deadline.
Read more: What Trump’s tariffs mean for the economy and your wallet
Terry Haines of Pangaea Policy summed up the many scenarios in a note to Yahoo Finance (before Trump’s Canada post).
“Markets are right to assume that bilateral trade deals are on a positive track … but markets shouldn’t assume there’s only one direction trade/tariffs can go,” Haines said, adding that plenty of things could go south in the days and weeks ahead.
Henrietta Treyz of Veda Partners added her own bottom line for the next few weeks, saying “the best investors and consumers can hope for beyond July 9th is an extension of the current 10% tariff rates,” with potential increases potentially delayed as Trump and his team acknowledge they need more time.
But that could mean that, as both Trump and Treyz noted on Friday, perhaps the most likely immediate-term development is these long-promised letters from Trump to lower-level trading partners simply setting new rates.
As Treyz wrote, her forecast remains that “about 135 nations will simply be advised of their new tariff rates, which I suspect will land in the 10%-25% range, the major trading partners will announce robust enough deals in principle or frameworks for continued negotiations that will allow the White House to build an off ramp to avoid higher tariff rates for most countries.”
Greg Valliere of AGF Investments added “They’ll be lucky to get a few deals done by July 4. Maybe a few more in August but the bulk these deals may not get done until deep into the fall.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent attends the press conference held by President Trump in the briefing room at the White House on June 27. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) ·Joe Raedle via Getty Images
The developments come near the end of a June that saw relatively fewer developments on the trade front, with Trump often more focused on issues like geopolitics, immigration, and his tax bill.
The month also saw US coffers set to see another monthly record for tariff revenue, with more than $26.7 billion in evidence so far for June.
Tariffs also remain central to economic projections and could rise, added EY chief economist Gregory Daco in a Yahoo Finance appearance as he warned that a new rise in tariffs could accelerate inflation and impact consumer spending through the rest of 2025.
“We are going to see a tariff reacceleration that is going to be tariff-induced,” he said of the months ahead, adding, “There’s more pressure to come into the economy.”
Read more: Why tariffs are expected to increase car insurance costs
The flood of White House trade commentary also came as Trump and his team continued to tout — and overstate what is publicly known, at least — his limited existing deals with China and the UK.
The US and China did move forward this week and inked their recently agreed-upon “framework” to move forward on talks.
Trump announced that move on Thursday, which Chinese state media later confirmed. Both nations are looking to get into trade talks in earnest in the weeks ahead and move past a few pressing short-term issues like rare earth minerals and semiconductor export controls.
The move this week does further stabilize trade relations, but an array of unresolved trading issues between the world’s two largest economies remains outstanding.
Bessent confirmed one of them on Friday during his appearance on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings With Maria.”
He confirmed that this week’s step forward with China does not include any change in tariff rates, noting, “Now our tariffs are 30 on them [and] we’re collecting a substantial tariff income.”
As Haines put it in all caps in a note to clients, “THERE.IS.NO.NEW.TRADE.DEAL.WITH.CHINA,” suggesting investors shouldn’t react too strongly on that front.
This post has been updated with additional developments.
Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
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