Trump’s conflicting statements confuse the fare image: Is it a “strategic uncertainty” or is it not clear what it wants?

The more President Donald Trump Talks about their efforts to get to offers with the commercial partners of America, more confuse the image of the rate. His team seems good to this, saying that Trump uses his “strategic uncertainty” in his advantage.

Trump says that the United States should not sign an agreement and that it could now sign -it is 25. He says he is looking for fair offers everywhere and does not care about the markets in other countries. He says his team can sit down to negotiate the terms of an agreement and that he could only impose a set of rates on his own.

“I am struggling to make sense,” Chad Bown, a leading partner at the Peterson Institute of International Economics, wrote.

On Wednesday afternoon of his social media site, Trump wrote that he will hold a press conference on Thursday morning on a “important trade agreement with representatives of a large and very respected country”. He added that he would be “the first of many !!!”

Although Trump’s team maintains his best -selling book “The Art of Agreement” as a test that has a master plan, much of the world is in Tenterhooks. This has led to a volatile stock market, hiring freezing and all kinds of uncertainty, even when Trump continues to promise that new factories and jobs are on the horizon.

A look at how commercial conversations can be reproduced:

Trump still wants rates

As part of any agreement, Trump wants to keep some of his rates in place. He believes that import taxes can lead to massive income for a strongly debt federal government, although other countries see the whole point of suffering an agreement such as undoing the rates.

“They are a beautiful thing for us,” Trump recently said about the rates. “If you can use them, if you can leave -you will use them, it will be very rich. And we will pay the debt, we will reduce your taxes in a very substantial way because so much money will be taken that we can reduce your taxes even beyond the reduction of taxes you will get.”

Until this year, the United States government has raised $ 45.9 billion per rates, about $ 14.5 billion more than last year, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. This revenue could be sharply increased, as 10% reference rates, the 145% rate is charged in Chinese goods and rates up to 25% in the imports of steel, aluminum, automobile and Mexican and Canadian.

In order to achieve Trump’s targets to pay $ 36 trillion debt and reduce income taxes, their rates should raise at least $ 2 trillion per year without making the economy crashed in ways that lead to lower general tax revenue. This would be close to the mathematically impossible.

How do negotiations work?

The Republican administration has said that 17 of its main 18 commercial partners have presented them essentially with deadline sheets, which list the possible commitments they are ready to make. Accepting a mutual understanding of the terms would be just the start of commercial conversations.

But foreign leaders have said that it is unclear what Trump wants or how the offers can be codified in a lasting agreement. They also know that Trump approved the United States-Mèxic-Canada agreement by 2020, only to collect new rates for the two commercial partners this year.

While meeting with Trump on Tuesday,Canadian Prime Minister Mark CarneySuggested that the following version of this agreement should be strengthened to avoid a repetition of the feentanyl -related rates imposed this year by Trump that Canada considered arbitrary.

“Some things about this will have to change,” said Carney.

Can the United States reach an agreement with China?

145% rates in China– and 125% rates in the United States that Beijing imposed in response: hang the whole negotiation process. Treasure Secretary, Scott Bessent, acknowledges that these rates are not “sustainable”.

First talks between the United States and China are plannedStart this weekend in SwitzerlandBut they are likely to be able to find ways to schedule sufficient tensions for significant negotiations to occur.

The key issue is that China is the dominant manufacturer of the world, which makes it a main exporter in ways that can replace the domestic industries. As China suppresses internal consumption and focuses on production, the rest of the world buy what it does because there is not enough internal demand. The United States wants to rebalance trade, but it has also done so through rates in countries that could be its natural allies in the defense of its technology and technology industries against China.

“Obviously in this puzzle, China is the largest piece,” Bessent said this week. “Where do we end up with China?”

The spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Lin Jian, has suggested that a significant way for Trump administration to start conversations would be to eliminate his rhetorical and punitive taxes.

“If the United States wants to solve the problem through dialogue and negotiation, it should stop threatening and pressing and participating in dialogue with China based on equality, respect and mutual benefit,” Lin said on Tuesday.

Asked Wednesday if it would reduce the rates in China as a condition of negotiations, Trump said, “No”.

The President also disputed statements from the Chinese government that his administration sought the talks in Geneva. “Well, I think they should go back and study their files,” Trump said.

Should Congress have to approve some offer?

Not necessarily.

Trump unilaterally imposed his universal rates without Congress, using the 1977 International Economic Powers of Emergency Powers to make it, which has led to multiple demands. The administration also maintains that any agreement to change the rates would not need the approval of the congress.

Previously, the presidents, including Trump in their first term with their Agreement from one phase China, could only negotiate “ more limited agreements that have focused on bilateral trade and bilateral rates, ” according to a report from the updated Congress Research Service this April. Other examples of limited offers include a 2023 agreement on critical minerals and a 2020 agreement on digital trade with Japan.

The challenge is that Trump has also made barriers to non -Ariff, such as autos safety regulations and value added taxes in Europe, part of his conversations. It wants other countries to change their policies not in exchange for the United States by reducing the new rates it presented. Other countries, in return, could oppose U.S. grants in their companies.

In theory, the approval of the House and the Senate would be needed to complete an agreement that addressed “non-tariff barriers and would require changes in American law,” said the report of the Congressional Research Service.

Is it really an agreement if Trump only imposes it?

If other countries do not satisfy him, Trump has suggested that he will only do some kind of internal treatment and establish a rate rate, although he did technically with his “Liberation Day” rates on April 2. Import tax announced by Trump caused a financial market sale that stopped some of his new rates for 90 days and collecting the 10% lower reference rate while negotiations were performed.

It seems that Trump will agree not to impose the originally threatened rates if he believes that other countries are making proper concessions, which means that the United States do not give up anything because the rates are new. But Trump could also withdraw his rates without necessarily spending much in return.

“Trump is notorious to make maximalist demands and then retired as negotiations continue, so we will see how long it is stuck with its formula,” said William Reinsch, a leading advisor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington Think Tank. “But so far it is clear that the countries that enter and want a” normal “trade negotiation with both sides by making noun concessions.

This story originally presented to Fortune.com

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