Trump’s trade deals vexed by cautious countries, legal challenges and haphazard strategy

By Kayla Tausche, Kylie Atwood and Kit Maher, CNN

(CNN) — Two weeks after President Donald Trump paused plans for steep tariffs with promises that a flurry of negotiated deals would ensue, the relative quiet has been deafening – roiling markets and calling into question the endgame for the administration’s trade war.

Since then, there’s been scant evidence of any progress with most of America’s trading partners and few signs of active negotiations with China, despite Trump saying otherwise.

A signature pledge from the campaign trail, Trump’s trade war began abruptly and has since been managed haphazardly as the White House moves to deliver on the president’s desire to rebalance global trade by prioritizing US manufacturing.

Trump’s frequent about-faces on tariffs have confused trading partners, the majority of which have not put forth written proposals to seek better terms. Some countries, sources told CNN, have been disincentivized by the chaos and have not made concrete offers to remove trade barriers, choosing instead to ride out the White House’s chaotic approach.

On top of that, a litany of businesses are challenging the legality of Trump’s unilateral trade war. And sources familiar with the situation told CNN that the administration remains understaffed in key agencies at the forefront of any negotiations.

“There’s a reason why Trump’s trade war didn’t start until the second year in his first term,” said one Trump adviser. “It takes time to get your team and strategy together.”

Trump has said he’d seek a “fair deal” with China and that tariffs could come down “substantially” from the 145% level to which he ratcheted them up in an escalatory tit-for-tat – the same day Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested the two countries would need to de-escalate tensions before they could talk directly.

The nod to a softening-but-still-hawkish stance toward China spurred a stock market rally Wednesday, even as official communications between the superpowers remain quiet. Even cutting tariffs in half would represent a position that would severely limit trade flows.

And while Trump says that discussions are “active” with Beijing, two senior Chinese officials are not planning to meet with any Trump aides while in Washington Wednesday and Thursday for meetings on the global economy, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

“Still a staring contest for now,” said one US official familiar with the lack of trade talk between the two sides.

Dealmaking delays

Bessent said Wednesday that more than 100 nations have approached the administration to try to broker deals during a 90-day pause on most retaliatory tariffs. Many leaders phoned Trump immediately after the pause, and some countries sent delegations in person to Washington.

But that initial rush has now slowed to a trickle.

Trump’s propensity to back-track or change course on trade has created an environment of acute uncertainty that, even as his team tries to broker deals, has some nations taking a wait-and-see approach.

This week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the US had received 18 written proposals for new trade terms since the pause began – a slight increase from the 15 proposals Kevin Hassett, Trump’s chief economic policy maker, said had been received on April 10.

Treasury, which is leading the negotiations for the individualized deals, has not released readouts for the majority of discussions Secretary Bessent has held to try advance them.

Sources briefed on the progress say that the Trump administration is nearing memoranda of understanding with a handful of countries, including the United Kingdom, Japan and India, that would outline in loose terms more detailed negotiations that would follow.

One of the delays, these sources said, is that the White House would prefer to announce the nascent deals as a group, rather than in one-off announcements. But amid a steep stock market selloff on April 21 over the lack of progress on such deals, the Office of the US Trade Representative released a statement saying the US and India had agreed on terms to “lay down a roadmap” for future trade talks.

The White House says the administration is working toward a slate of deals that will be sufficient to Trump.

“The administration’s trade and economic team is working at breakneck speed to negotiate custom-tailored deals with our major trading partners,” spokesman Kush Desai told CNN in a statement. “Any final decisions and agreements, however, will come from President Trump and President Trump only.”

Whether Trump would find such pledges for future negotiations as ample progress to further pause tariffs remains to be seen. During his first term, Trump in the Oval Office railed against so-called MOUs, which he said “don’t mean anything.”

“I wouldn’t go into a memorandum, I would go right into a trade agreement,” he said in February 2019. “Either you’re gonna make a deal or you’re not.”

Mounting legal uncertainty

Legal challenges to Trump’s tariffs have emerged from a range of parties, from small businesses to the Blackfeet Tribe in Montana, to the State of California. The fate of several cases, which argue Trump overstepped his legal authority to levy these tariffs on the grounds of a “national emergency,” has compounded the uncertainty for companies navigating them and countries trying to negotiate around them.

At the Court of International Trade, five small businesses that import goods from impacted countries sued the administration, arguing that Trump overstepped his authority in imposing the tariffs on the grounds of a “national emergency.” The court will hear arguments in Washington, DC, on May 6 and has ruled that the tariffs can remain in place as the case proceeds.

The Trump administration also faces lawsuits filed in Montana by members of the Blackfeet Tribe, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, an Illinois-based toy maker, and a paper goods company in Florida. Given the distinct possibility that the tariffs could be overturned – or temporarily enjoined – by a judge, many trading partners have approached the negotiations with the Trump administration in a cautious manner, unwilling to barter on specific terms.

The challenge for the administration, according to a source familiar with progress, is that some hesitant nations have been noncommittal or delayed in their approach.

“They’re saying, ‘I’m willing to maybe think about or talk about that at some future date,’” the source told CNN, requesting anonymity to describe private discussions.

The challenge for those nations, however, is that other trading partners could find themselves at the front of the queue if they provide more tangible details.

“Negotiations can move slowly or move quickly,” the source said. “If you want to move quickly, you have to come with pen and paper.”

Staffing shortages for critical work

As for when the deals could be reached, multiple sources familiar with the process who spoke to CNN acknowledged that the detailed nature of trade deals requires time. The best case by the 90-day deadline, they said, is that progress has been made with allied nations, not that a dotted line has been signed.

One critical problem for Trump’s economic and trade team: Beneath the high-level bilateral talks, departments lack the senior political appointees to assemble the fine print of such deals.

No individuals have been nominated to serve in the number-two roles at the USTR and the Department of Commerce. Commerce also lacks a nominee for undersecretary for economic affairs and undersecretary for international affairs. At Treasury, no nominee has been put forth for undersecretary for International Affairs. The State Department’s nominee for undersecretary of economic growth, Jacob Helberg, has not received a Senate hearing.

Trump’s decision to move forward with a trade agenda even more aggressive than what he campaigned on – with such glaring gaps in agency mastheads – has raised eyebrows, especially as pro-tariff trade hawks wield outsized influence.

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