Stocks drifted and the U.S. dollar held near multi-year lows on Monday, in market uncertainty after U.S. officials flagged a delay on tariffs but failed to provide specifics on the changes.
The United States is close to finalising several trade agreements in the coming days and will notify other countries of higher tariff rates by July 9, President Donald Trump said on Sunday, with the higher rates to take effect on August 1.
“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 August 1 you will boomerang back to your April 2 tariff level,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNN.
Trump in April announced a 10% base tariff rate on most countries and higher “reciprocal” rates ranging up to 50%, with an original deadline of this Wednesday.
However, he also said levies could range in value from “maybe 60% or 70%”, and threatened an extra 10% on countries aligning themselves with the “Anti-American policies” of the BRICS group of Brazil, Russia, India and China.
With very few actual trade deals done, analysts had always suspected the date would be pushed out, though it was still not clear if the new deadline applied to all trading partners or just some of them.
Investors have grown somewhat used to the uncertainty surrounding U.S. trade policy and the initial market reaction was cautious. S&P 500 futures fell 0.3% and Nasdaq futures were down 0.45% in early European trading hours.
