‘It’s all fake': White House insider claims Trump's tariff threats a ‘theatrical show’

As Donald Trump's 90 day deadline approaches, the US president has once again shifted his self-imposed deadline to reach trade deals with dozens of countries.

When the 90 day pause was originally announced, Trump bragged he would rapidly secure dozens of trade deals, but his administration has claimed just three — and the details are thin, reports Politico.

US exports were down in May, the first full month after his tariffs took effect. And even as the stock market reaches new highs and jobs numbers come in better than expected, the mood among consumers and corporate America remains downbeat.

None of it bothers Trump.

"We can do whatever we want," the president said last week about Tuesday's deadline for countries to reach deals — or face punishing new tariffs. "We could extend it, we could make it shorter. I'd like to make it shorter."

That ambivalence has been a hallmark of the past three months of negotiations, as world leaders rushed to make deals to avoid levies between 20 and 50 percent, in many cases, an effective trading blockade. And it highlights an important tension of Trump's second administration: The president's long-standing affinity for imposing tariffs is clashing with his reputation as a canny dealmaker.

Foreign officials, trade experts, lawmakers and even some White House allies have expressed a nihilistic view of the July deadline, questioning whether a deal with the Trump administration means anything at all given the president's penchant for using tariffs as leverage to get his way.

"Trump knows the most interesting part of his presidency is the tariff conversation," said a person close to the White House, familiar with the trade talks and granted anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations. "I find it hard to believe he's going to surrender it that easily. It's all fake. There's no deadline. It's a self-imposed landmark in this theatrical show, and that's where we are."

Trump's Wednesday announcement of an initial trade agreement with Vietnam was a case in point: While Trump took to Truth Social to announce new tariff rates for the country, draft language of a statement set to be released by the US and Vietnam underscores that the deal remains a work in progress.

Since announcing his plans for an historic escalation of US tariffs at a Rose Garden event on April 2 — what the White House hailed as "Liberation Day" — Trump has attempted to have it both ways on trade deals.

His administration appears fully committed to tariffs, maintaining a baseline 10 percent duty on nearly every trading partner. He also imposed higher levies on certain sectors, like automobile and auto parts imports, with more to come, under the auspices of reshoring business, protecting national security and raising new revenue.

In the meantime, his trio of trade negotiators — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer — have embarked on a mad sprint to secure multiple deals with foreign governments, without authority to significantly lower the new barriers, says Politico.

The result has been a convoluted process with little progress and no end in sight. Countries have sent representatives to the US on repeated visits to negotiate, but some have failed to secure meetings. Those who have secured facetime with Trump officials have sometimes left confused about US demands or have been later seen their countries chastised by Trump on social media.

Even as Tuesday's deadline approaches, the White House and Trump's top lieutenants are sending conflicting messages about how much the deadline matters. Both Bessent and National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett were spreading the word on Capitol Hill and in television appearances that Trump would likely extend the deadline, even as Trump himself ruled out such a possibility. "I think we could have trade wrapped up by Labor Day," Bessent told Fox Business's Maria Bartiromo last week.

White House aides privately stress that Trump is serious about the tariff deadline and making deals. They do acknowledge, however, that notching a deal with a country now that they see as aimed at correcting trade imbalances doesn't preclude the president from slapping tariffs on a country in the future over non-trade related issues, like he did with fentanyl tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China.

"To assume that he sees this as a game — he's the president of the United States. He understands what's at stake here. He's not willy-nilly trying to sow economic discord just for TV ratings," said one White House official, granted anonymity to share the president's thinking. "He understands what he's doing here, and there's very clear goals that have been outlined."

Japanese trade minister Ryosei Akazawa made visits to the US nearly every week in June. But shortly after his trip last weekend, Trump posted on social media that he didn't believe Japan was open to making a deal on rice and threatened to send them a letter with the tariff they'll need to pay to export to the US — potentially as high as 35 percent, higher than the 24 percent rate the country faced under the "reciprocal" tariffs the president paused in April.

Trump has repeatedly floated sending such letters to other governments in recent weeks, suggesting that he's fed up with trade negotiations and would prefer to just slap a tariff on US trading partners while informing them they are allowed the "honor" of doing business in the US.

Trump, speaking to reporters Thursday afternoon, said that he may start sending out as many as 10 letters a day starting "probably" Friday, letting countries know "what they're going to pay to do business with the US"

Such a plan would appear similar to his initial roll-out of reciprocal tariffs, which were paused after businesses and investors panicked, sending the stock market down and interest rates up.

Wendy Cutler, vice president at the nonprofit Asia Society Policy Institute and a former negotiator with the US Trade Representative's Office during the Obama administration, said she expects a flurry of deals in the coming days, but cautioned, "Eyes are wide open about these deals, and that the deals themselves do not necessarily mean you're going to be shielded from tariffs."

"You could just do something that irks Trump and he can go ahead and threaten another tariff," Cutler continued.

In addition to Vietnam, the White House has said it is close to crafting a deal with India. A flurry of trade officials have descended on Washington to negotiate a deal in recent weeks and the European Union, which Trump once accused of slow-walking negotiations, appears willing to make significant concessions for a deal.

Mark DiPlacido, who worked in the US Trade Representative's Office during Trump's first term, said he believes Trump will use the threat of unilateral tariffs up until the deadline. But, at the end of the day, Trump wants deals, he said.

"I think the president hopes to reach a deal and get the concessions that he wants to see from these countries — and is willing to walk away or willing to suspend negotiations to get those concessions," said DiPlacido, now a policy advisor at American Compass, a think tank that embraces economic populism. "But at the end of the day, in most cases, he wants an actual deal. If it were just punitive, there wouldn't have been the 90-day extension."

But the announced deals are unlikely to be full-fledged bilateral trade agreements that need approval by Congress. Instead, the process seems to be following the example set by the first trade framework the administration rolled out in May, with the United Kingdom. Rather than hammer out the details, the two sides agreed to specific terms in relation to goods purchases and tariff rate quotas and agreed to keep talking about some of the more difficult issues — like the UK's digital service taxes and agriculture barriers — down the road.

"Even though the deal may be done, the negotiations continue. They're framework agreements. They're not final," said Everett Eissenstat, a White House trade adviser in Trump's first term.

"The bigger picture is that he's moving the ball in the direction he wants it to go, which is toward more reciprocity and also toward higher baseline tariffs," Eissenstat added. "It's going to be a bit bumpy, but at the end of the day, he's making progress."

"You have wins. Take them," said the person close to the White House, of the advice they would give to the president. "You only have to assume he doesn't want to take them because he likes the game too much."