The White House has so far refused to provide a list of countries it claims have reached out with offers to make deals on tariffs.
Both President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have claimed that as many as 75 countries have reached out to the Trump administration hoping to make trade deals, but they appear unwilling to reveal which countries are on that list.
On Wednesday, as Trump took a drastic U-turn on tariffs, Bessent spoke to reporters outside the White House, saying, “It has brought more than 75 countries forward to negotiate – it took great courage, great courage for [Trump] to stay the course until this moment—and what we have ended up with here, as I told everyone a week ago in this very spot, ‘do not retaliate and you will be rewarded.’”
The White House told NBC News that it will not release a list of the countries, despite several requests. On Wednesday, Trump took to Truth Social to say that he was pausing tariffs on “more than 75 countries” for 90 days before adding that it was “many more than 75” who want to make a deal.
Trump said Thursday that his announcement of a pause came after he had been thinking about it “for a few days.”
The widespread tariffs sent stock markets spiralling, and Trump noted when speaking to reporters on Wednesday that stocks had surged following his announcement.
The president decided to suspend all tariffs apart from a baseline levy of 10 percent, even as he chose to raise tariffs on China to a total of 145 percent. He said Wednesday that the decision "probably came together early this morning" after he had spoken to Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
“Scott Bessent and I sat with the President while he wrote one of the most extraordinary Truth posts of his Presidency,” Lutnick wrote on X following Trump’s announcement. “The world is ready to work with President Trump to fix global trade, and China has chosen the opposite direction.”
Trump noted that they “just wrote it up” without speaking to attorneys.
"We wrote it up from our hearts, right? It was written from the heart, and I think it was well written, too," said Trump, Axios reported.
"We don't want to hurt countries that don't need to be hurt, and they all want to negotiate. The only problem is ... you can only do so many at one time," he added.
"We want to get it right, we want to take care of them, but we have to take care of our country ... But this was something certainly, we've been talking about for a period of time and we decided to pull the trigger today, and we're happy about it,” the president argued.
