90 Deals in 90 Days? Trump's Trade War Is Failing on Its Own Terms
The trade deficit is getting bigger, the deals aren't coming, and foreign investment has declined.
When President Donald Trump announced the "Liberation Day" tariffs on most imports in early April, his trade advisors promised it was the prelude to new, better trade deals with dozens of other countries.
"We're going to run 90 deals in 90 days," Peter Navarro, the White House's top trade advisor, told Fox Business on April 12, shortly after Trump paused those tariffs—ostensibly to allow negotiations to take place.
It's been 76 days since then, and there have not been 76 new trade deals. Not even close. The actual tally is two, and that's only if you count the "framework" deals with China and the United Kingdom—neither of which amounts to a full trade deal at the moment.
On Thursday, the Trump administration officially backed down from the "90 deals in 90 days" posturing. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the early July deadline for re-implementing those paused tariffs was "not critical." Whether the paused "Liberation Day" tariffs return in early July is "a decision for the president to make," she added.
On Friday morning, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said trade negotiations will continue until at least September 1, effectively giving the administration an extra 60 days to deliver those 90 deals.
Of course, that also means the uncertainty of the trade war will continue for businesses that have to plan purchases more than a few months ahead.
What's becoming more certain is that Trump's second-term trade war has failed on its own terms. That's evidently not only in the lack of new trade deals that have been delivered, but also in two other data points that crystallized this week.
First, data from the Commerce Department showed that America's trade deficit—the gap between the value of all imports and all exports—widened to $96.6 billion in May. That's an 11 percent increase over April. The main culprit in the growing trade deficit was a decline in exports (which fell by $9.7 billion) even as imports stayed flat.
Shrinking the trade deficit has been one of Trump's obsessions since first taking office in 2017, and he has repeatedly claimed that higher tariffs would accomplish that task. What he forgets, however, is that declining exports are a major consequence of higher tariffs. This happens because American companies become less productive as tariffs disrupt their supply chains and foreign countries retaliate by raising their tariffs in response. The same thing happened during his first term: Higher tariffs caused exports to decline, and the trade deficit widened.
Second, a separate Commerce Department report showed that foreign investment into the United States also slowed during the first quarter of the year. While that's not a direct response to the "Liberation Day" tariffs imposed in early April, it likely reflects "high business uncertainty over President Donald Trump's tariff plans," as Reuters noted.
Remember that Trump imposed tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico, and China in February and spent his first few months in office promising more tariffs in the near future. It's no wonder that businesses pulled back on investment plans in the U.S. while they waited to see how all that would shake out.
Again, this shows the failure of the trade war's fundamental premise. Rather than encouraging more investment and production in the United States, the higher costs and economic uncertainty created by tariffs (and the threat of tariffs) is reducing those very investments.
One final data point worth considering: As of June 24, the Treasury Department reported collecting more than $26.7 billion in tariff revenue this month, up from $22 billion in the month of May and $17.4 billion in April. That's the direct cost of the trade war: the dollars coming out of Americans' wallets and businesses' accounts as they buy imported goods.
When Trump announced those "Liberation Day" tariffs, he said any pain from the new tariffs would be offset by all the benefits. "We will supercharge our domestic industrial base. We will pry open foreign markets and break down foreign trade barriers, and ultimately, more production at home will mean stronger competition and lower prices for consumers," Trump promised on April 2, which he said would be remembered as "the day that we began to make America wealthy again."
None of that has happened.
There are not going to be 90 deals in 90 days—or by September 1. It's time for the Trump administration to cut its losses, remove the tariffs, and end this foolish trade war with the entire globe.
