US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has issued a statement on social media touting "substantive movement" towards trade deals with India, South Korea, and Japan.
- Bessent: "We are continuing to make substantive movement on negotiations with many of our trading partners.
The negotiations with our Asian trading partners are going very well; the negotiations with the Republic of Korea have gone very well; [Vice President JD Vance's] negotiations with India went very well; and I think we've had some very substantial negotiations with our Japanese allies."
- In an interview with CNBC earlier today, Bessent indicated that the Trump administration is working on a standardised template for trade deals, but declined to disclose further details.
- If progress is seen to be made, the template to facilitate further delays to the implementation of 'reciprocal tariffs', scheduled to take effect in July, as comprehensive bilateral trade deals can involve years of negotiations.
- Bloomberg reported earlier that South Korea's Vice Industry Minister Park Sung-taek said Seoul will send a delegation to Washington this week for “working-level talks to follow up on last week’s progress," but agreeing to any package of measures before the June 3 presidential election is “theoretically impossible.”
- Reuters reported that Japan's top trade negotiator Ryosei Akazawa said Tokyo's position 'has not changed' and Japan will continue to demand the full removal of US tariffs in a second round of negotiations scheduled for this week.