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Tariff Pause Extended to August 1st? Here Is What Scott Bessent Has to Say

Dmitri Bolt
Dmitri Bolt  |  July 07, 2025 1:00 PM

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has hinted at a possible extension of the Trump Administration's tariff pause as of Sunday during a CNN interview with Dana Bash. Originally, the pause on reciprocal tariffs had a deadline of July 9th, but Bessent told Bash that Liberation Day tariff rates will be reimposed by August 1st, if trade deals are not initiated with the United States. Many of the countries that the U.S. had imposed tariffs on had not even reached out to the Trump Administration.

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 Aug. 1, you will boomerang back to your April 2 tariff level.

President Trump posted on his Truth Social account on Sunday night that letters would be delivered to countries starting on Monday at noon.

While Bessent had hinted at a new deadline, he declined to say it explicitly, and told Bash he would not "give away the [entire] playbook."

President Trump, on April 2nd had announced reciprocal "Liberation Day" tariffs on all U.S. trading partners, based on the trade deficit. By April 9th, the tariffs had been paused in an effort to leverage other countries into providing more favorable trade deals with the United States. As of now, more than 50 countries have initiated trade deal negotiations, and that includes the majority of primary trading partners of the United States.

UPDATE: President Trump has just announced renewed tariff rates of 25 percent for both South Korea and Japan, which will go into effect on August 1st. As of last week, the president had expressed dissatisfaction with the progress on trade deals with both countries, calling Japan spoiled, and having only participated in talks with South Korea. As of now, no official deal has been initiated with South Korea.