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Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, put pressure on new universal prices on American imports to start at 2.5% and gradually increase, said four familiar people with the proposal.
The 2.5% direct debit would increase the same amount each month, the people who knew it, said, giving companies time to adjust and countries the possibility of negotiating with the administration of the American president.
Samples could be pushed to 20% – online with Trump Maximalist position on the campaign of the campaign last year. But a progressive introduction would be more moderate than the immediate action that certain countries feared.
The proposal by Bessente Then comes that Trump’s team is debating how to implement tariff plans, the president intensifying his price rhetoric on Monday in a speech in Florida, threatening more tasks on semiconductors, metals and pharmaceutical goods.
“We have to bring production to our country,” said Trump.
The president spoke after a day of unrest in the American stock markets, launched by a technological sale while China seemed to be leaping ahead of the United States in the world race of artificial intelligence.
Its threat of imposing prices on semiconductors entering the United States would be difficult to achieve given the impact on technological companies based on flea manufacturers such as TSMC in Taiwan.
On the other hand, the plan of Bessent would only see 2.5% added to the prices each month. Two people familiar with the discussions said that it was not clear if the secretary of the Treasury had convinced other central stakeholders, including Howard Lunick, Trump’s choice for the Secretary of Commerce, to adopt his proposal for A gradual introduction of prices.
A person familiar with Bessente’s thought refused to comment on the file on the proposal, but said: “He does not establish any plan, but if he is confirmed, is impatiently awaiting the conversation.”
Bessent was comfortably confirmed as the next US Secretary of the Treasury by a Senate vote of 68-29 Monday evening. A few hours later, addressing Air Force One journalists, Trump said he wanted “much larger” tariffs of 2.5%.
The pricing policy is at the center of the ferocious trade Debates between hawks such as Peter Navarro and Jamieson Greer, and moderate like Bessent.
Trump has threatened to force prices that are up to 25% on imports from Canada and Mexico this weekend, and in recent days threatened in Colombia With 25% prices in a dispute on deportees.
Another person familiar with Trump’s thought said they weighed different options. “There is not yet a plan on which the president is ready to decide.”
While Bessent and other supporters of the low initial price think that it would give countries and businesses time to adapt and negotiate, criticisms have counter that a higher initial rate would send a clearer message.
Trump made high prices at the heart of his “America First” campaign rhetoric last year, swearing “Tax” foreign nations “at levels to which they are not used”.
But since its inauguration on January 20, the president’s main decision has been to publish a memorandum describing surveys on American trade policy, the cause of the country’s trade deficits and if competitors manipulate currencies and unjustly tax American companies.
Journalists asked him if he had planned to present universal prices, Trump replied: “We can. But we are not yet ready for that.
Trade analysts and lawyers have declared that Trump could quickly receive universal rates using executive powers such as international emergency economic law, which allows the president to respond to emergencies by economic means.
However, commercial experts have also warned that the use of the ieepa to issue general rates would probably be confronted with legal challenges by business groups.
Trump, who has long made up for the United States’s trade deficit, suggested that prices would be a way to increase the country’s income.
“Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will proclaim and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens,” he said in his inaugural speech.
In its confirmation hearings of the US Senate last week, Bessent said that Trump administration would use prices to combat unfair commercial practices, would increase the revenues of the United States government and conclude agreements with foreign countries.
The White House did not respond to a request for comments.
Additional McCormick reports in Washington
