Bessent’s Mar-a-Lago tariff message to Trump: zero in on the endgame

By Kevin Liptak, Alayna Treene and Pamela Brown, CNN

(CNN) — As President Donald Trump’s new tariffs shook global markets and sent foreign leaders scrambling this weekend, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent flew to Mar-a-Lago with a message.

It was imperative to get the administration’s tariff communications aligned, Bessent told Trump, and more focused on the endgame for Americans: better trade deals with foreign nations, according to people familiar with the conversation.

The risk in not doing so would be further market turmoil, Bessent conveyed.

The meeting was an example of the conflicting narratives swirling around Trump — with some corners pushing an effort to make deals and calm the markets. But five days after his splashy Rose Garden tariff announcement, foreign leaders and US investors alike are all still looking for clues of how willing the president is to negotiate down the duties. And as those outside observers pore over interviews and remarks from Trump’s constellation of economic advisers, it has not been clear what it will take to end the global trade war.

Delegations from US trading partners large and small were preparing to seek out American officials or plan trips to Washington to try and ascertain exactly how to remove the new duties. Offers were already coming in from some of the world’s largest trading blocs. The European Union, for example, offered to drop tariffs to zero on automobiles and industrial goods.

In all, 70 countries had approached the US administration to discuss trade issues in the wake of the new tariffs, administration officials said late Monday.

Whether any of that outreach works remained an open question, with significant ramifications both for the global economy and American consumers. Mixed signals from Trump and members of his economic team on Monday offered little clarity on how and when relief might appear.

One fact that did seem clear was Trump’s willingness to weather whatever political or financial fallout occurs in the near term as the new tariffs take effect later this week. Instead of endorsing an off-ramp, he said he was willing to further ratchet up tariffs on China if that country’s retaliatory tariffs remain in place.

Bessent has been one of the most visible proponents of Trump’s tariffs, and has ensured there is little daylight between himself and the president on the plan to apply the new duties. At the same time, he has also voiced the view that countries can and should seek out the administration for new trade agreements — a position the president himself took Monday after his meeting with his Treasury secretary in Florida, which was first reported by Politico.

After a morning telephone call between Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Bessent announced that Trump had tasked him and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer with opening new negotiations with Japan meant to “implement the President’s vision for the new Golden Age of Global Trade.”

Yet at the same time, both Trump and his aides suggested those talks are not expected to yield results immediately.

Other advisers continued to insist the conversations over tariffs were not “negotiations” at all, but rather a more permanent way to realign global trade.

In describing Trump’s approach, advisers said he was hoping to milk the United States’ trading partners for everything he can get, and that doing so will likely take time. Because every country is different, those negotiations will be tailored to Trump’s direct conversations with them, those advisers said.

“Everyone is desperate. If you have a desperate partner you can get a lot more, in the long run,” one White House official told CNN, adding that dozens of countries are coming to the table with options for how to best move forward and that Trump “will choose the best deal he can make to ensure we’re getting fair rates and bringing down the deficits.”

The official added that for now, the White House expects other countries to bring them their best offers — and only then will Trump be willing to deal.

A second Trump administration official told CNN that one of the highest priorities for the president is to work out deals that will erase America’s trade deficit with other countries.

Still, some officials behind the scenes believe that Trump should work out some deals sooner rather than later to put wins on the board to show the American people his tariff plan is working, and to further restore confidence in their overall message encouraging Americans to be patient, people familiar with the talks said.

“You need to instill hope in people who are watching their 401ks dwindle and the stock market crash. They need to do something to convince them to hold on a little longer and buy them the time they need to work this out,” a person close to Trump told CNN.

Some of Trump’s wealthy supporters, such as billionaire investor Bill Ackman, publicly denounced the president’s actions on tariffs, but others remained silent Monday as the turmoil continued on Wall Street.

In interviews, some advisers to billionaire donors urged patience to see how Trump’s moves would play out, noting they could result in negotiations that would significantly lower the tariff rates imposed by other countries. Some indicated they were more focused on their own priorities in Washington and not inclined to risk those goals by public feuding with the administration.

Divergent positions from the administration

But in the span of Monday afternoon, the administration offered divergent positions from different corners of the president’s team.

Just as Bessent posted on social media about leading negotiations with Japan, trade adviser Peter Navarro published a new opinion article in the Financial Times, staking out a firm line against easing off the tariffs and declaring, once again, “This is not a negotiation.”

Speaking at a Washington think tank, another of Trump’s top economic advisers acknowledged there were a variety of viewpoints.

“There are conflicting narratives because everyone’s got an opinion,” said Stephen Miran, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, during a speech at the Hudson Institute. “That’s fine. Disagreement is how you can avoid group think.”

Still, the “conflicting narratives” emanating from the White House have also generated confusion on Wall Street and in foreign capitals. An erroneous report on social media Monday morning suggesting Trump was open to a 90-day pause on the new tariffs sent markets sharply higher, only to drop again after the White House denied it as “fake news.”

Later in the Oval Office, Trump affirmed he wasn’t looking at a pause in the new tariffs. And he suggested deals to remove the new duties wouldn’t happen quickly.

“We’re going to get fair deals and good deals with every country. And if we don’t, we’re going to have nothing to do with them,” Trump said. “They’re not going to be allowed to participate in the United States.”

He went on to deny any disconnect in the messages his team has been conveying, on either the permanence of the tariffs or whether he was open to negotiations in bringing them down.

“They can both be true. There can be permanent tariffs and they can also be negotiations, because there are things that we need beyond tariffs,” he said alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who left Washington without any guarantee from Trump that the 17% tariff he announced on Israel last week would be lifted.

CNN’s Fredreka Schouten contributed to this report.

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