The president revealed updated tariff rates for seven countries, including 40 percent duties on Laos and Myanmar, in push for new trade deals.
President Donald Trump will sign an executive order Monday to extend the deadline for tariff negotiations.
On July 7, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump will sign the order to move the deadline to Aug. 1 from its current date of July 9.
The extension comes as the administration is increasing pressure on trading partners to form unilateral trade deals with the United States. Before Monday’s expected extension, Trump set a 90-day deadline to finalize new deals that were set to expire on Wednesday.
The executive order will also keep tariffs fixed at their negotiation period level of 10 percent. Had the extension not been granted, those tariffs would have reverted to the level set in April, when Trump announced a broad tariff schedule with most of the United States’ international trading partners.
In the same press conference, Leavitt said the United States will be sending out letters to at least 12 countries about updates to tariff policy. Before Leavitt’s press conference, Trump posted the contents of two letters sent to the leaders of Japan and South Korea on his Truth Social account. They set the tariff rate at 25 percent.
In the following hours, he posted letters addressed to the leaders of Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (also known as Burma), and South Africa. Those letters set the tariff rate for Kazakhstan and Malaysia at 25 percent, South Africa at 30 percent, and Laos and Myanmar at 40 percent.
Those rates are slightly lower for Kazakhstan, Laos, and Myanmar than the amount announced in April, Malaysia’s rate increased by one point, and South Africa’s rate remained the same.
So far, the negotiation period has yielded new trade agreements with China, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam.
Earlier on July 7, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the United States was anticipating making a number of announcements ahead of the previous Wednesday deadline.
