President Donald Trump is “highly likely” to extend the 90-day tariff pause for countries negotiating with the U.S. in “good faith,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday.
During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing, Virginia Rep. Don Beyer asked Bessent if Americans should prepare for a “Liberation Day 2.0,” referencing the early April ceremony where Trump unveiled his market-crashing tariffs.
Bessent said the Trump administration was working to secure deals with “18 important trading partners” ahead of the July 9 deadline.
“We are working toward deals on those and it is highly likely that those countries that are… negotiating in good faith, we will roll the date forward to continue good faith negotiations,” he said. “If someone is not negotiating, then we will not.”
“It will be up to President Trump, but it is my belief that if someone is negotiating in good faith, that an extension will be possible,” Bessent added.
Trump declared America’s “liberation” from unfair trading policies on April 2, sending the stock market into a nosedive with his announcement of sweeping levies on most of the country’s trading partners.
Days later, as stocks continued to tank, Trump hit pause on his trade war and declared a 90-day reprieve on tariffs for most countries, just as he backed off his tariffs on Canadian goods and lowered his sky-high levies on Chinese imports.
The on-again, off-again tariff rollout has earned an acronym on Wall Street: TACO, for Trump Always Chickens Out.
Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong first coined the term “TACO trade,” which quickly became popular among stockbrokers.
The president had a meltdown last month when a reporter asked him about the term.
“I chicken out?” he asked. “I’ve never heard that… It’s called negotiation!”
“Don’t ever say what you said. That’s a nasty question,” he told the reporter, later adding: “I usually have the opposite problem. They say I am too tough.”
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