A: Hey there! Guess what? Bessent from the US Treasury said something interesting about trade deals, huh?

B: Oh really? What did he say?

A: He said they're almost done with several deals and we might see announcements soon. But he mentioned there's a lot of hesitation on other sides.

B: Hesitation? I see... And if countries don't cooperate, what happens?

A: Trump's gonna write letters to some of their trading partners saying that if they don't hurry up, the tariffs will go back to the level they were at in April.

B: Sounds serious! What about those smaller countries without much trade with us?

A: He mentioned sending letters to about 100 of them too, but they're mainly focusing on important trading relationships that account for 95% of their deficit.
----------------

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says his country is "close to" cutting several trade deals. But he has urged countries to accept US demands if they hope to avoid what President Donald Trump calls "reciprocal" tariffs.



Bessent spoke in an interview with CNN on Sunday before a pause to the tariffs expires on Wednesday. Trump unveiled the levies on April 2, but later mostly suspended them.



Bessent said the US is "close to several deals as always" and that he "would expect to see several big announcements over the next couple of days."



However, the secretary argued that "there's a lot of foot dragging on the other side." In a message to countries that had not yet struck deals with the US, he said: "If you want to speed things up, have at it. If you want to go back to the old rate, that's your choice."



Bessent also said, "President Trump's going to be sending letters to some of our trading partners saying that if you don't move things along, then on August 1, you will boomerang back to your April 2 tariff level."



Trump announced on Friday that he had signed letters to be sent to 12 countries on Monday to notify them of the tariff rates they would face. He stated that the rates would range "from 60 or 70 percent to 10 or 20 percent."



Bessent said the US is also "going to send out probably 100 letters to small countries where we don't have very much trade." But he added that the US is concentrating on "18 important trading relationships that account for 95 percent of our deficit."