President Donald Trump appeared to backtrack Monday on his administration’s ambitious pledge to secure “90 deals in 90 days” with international trading partners. Questioned by a reporter about the status of those agreements — a promise he made following his self-declared “Liberation Day” in April — Trump offered no concrete list of completed trade deals. Instead, he spoke vaguely about frameworks, potential agreements, and a new plan focused largely on sending tariff notifications to foreign governments.
Rather than celebrating dozens of finalized deals as previously touted, Trump emphasized a shift in strategy, suggesting that many countries would simply receive formal letters detailing the new tariffs they will face when exporting goods to the United States.
Here’s how Trump explained the situation:
“Oh, we’ve spoken to everybody. It’s all done. I told you — we’ll make some deals. But mostly, we’re sending a letter. We’re saying, ‘Welcome to the United States. If you’d like to participate in the greatest, most successful country ever…’ We’re doing better than ever. The numbers — you’ll see — are unbelievable. We’ve never had investment like this.”
Trump claimed the administration was “going to have much more than 90” agreements, but clarified that most interactions would consist of formal tariff notifications rather than negotiated trade accords.
“We’ve made a deal with the United Kingdom. We’ve made one with China. We’re close to India. Others, we’ve met with — but it’s not happening. So we just send them a letter: ‘Do you wanna play ball? Here’s what you have to pay.’”
The president framed the tariff letters as a fair approach, stating that the imposed amounts were “a small fraction” of what the U.S. could demand and were intentionally modest to preserve international relationships.
“We could be asking for a lot more,” Trump said, “but we’re doing it my way — to maintain good relationships.”
In short, while the original vision painted a picture of sweeping trade breakthroughs within three months, the current reality seems more focused on unilateral tariff enforcement and selective deal-making — a shift that has raised questions about the scope and success of Trump’s trade strategy.