Donald Trump has given everyone time to make a trade deal, even extending his original deadline to April.
It would seem as though time is now running out to make a deal.
The Trump administration has announced that if no deal is in place by August 1, tariffs will revert to April levels for the countries that have not signed a new deal with the United States.
Trump has pushed back his tariff deadlines several times, and he always takes heat from the media.
When Trump initially announced the tariffs, if you go back and read my reports, I had stated that I thought Trump was using them as leverage, so he had no problem pushing them back if people were serious about coming to the table.
In April, Trump announced that he would have a 90-day extension on the tariffs, ideally to get deals in place.
Well, that 90 days is just about up, and Trump is now warning everyone that if a deal is not in place by August 1, April tariffs will go back into play.
In terms of producing income, the answer to that question is a resounding yes.
So far this year, the government has collected nearly $69 billion in tariffs and excise taxes, which is a 78% increase from the prior year’s same period.
But the problem is that the tariffs are being passed on to consumers, with Patrick Allen, a Columbus, Ohio-based importer who sells French wine throughout the country, explaining, "It's a tax on the backs of people who are importing either raw materials or, in my case, wine, and eventually it gets built into the price everybody is paying for goods."
This is why I have told everyone to simply stop buying. If we don’t buy, the countries exporting the goods will have no choice but to come to the table. So, right now, if I cannot buy American, I just don’t buy (by the way, my monthly expenditures have dramatically dropped when you realize how much junk you were buying that you did not need).
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent broke the news this weekend that the hammer is about to fall.
Bessent stated, "Is it fair to say there's a bit of a pause on the July 9th deadline for some of these trading partners?
"I don't think it's a bit of a pause because I think what's happened is there's a lot of congestion going into the home stretch and, as a part of the trade team, what's great about having President Trump on our side is he's created maximum leverage.”
Remember, if you don’t need it, don’t buy it. And if you do need it, go outside your normal shopping avenues to see if you can buy it cheaper and buy it American. You will be amazed how a few more clicks on the computer can save you some serious money.
