Trump to send out tariff letters at noon

US President Donald Trump has announced that tariff letters or deals with multiple countries will be delivered later today.

He said on his social media platform Truth Social: “I am pleased to announce that the UNITED STATES TARIFF Letters, and/or Deals, with various Countries from around the World, will be delivered starting 12:00 P.M. (Eastern), Monday, July 7th. Thank you for your attention to this matter! DONALD J. TRUMP, President of The United States of America.”

Stock markets slipped in Asia amid concerns about the lack of detail. The dollar weakened against a basket of currencies.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNN yesterday that Trump was going to be sending letters to some trading partners saying that “if you don’t move things along, then on August 1 you will boomerang back to your April 2 tariff level”.

The president announced a 10 per cent base tariff rate on most countries in April and higher “reciprocal” rates ranging up to 50 per cent, with an original deadline of this Wednesday.

However, he also said levies could range in value from “maybe 60 per cent or 70 per cent”, and threatened an extra 10 per cent on countries aligning themselves with the “anti-American policies” of the BRICS group of Brazil, Russia, India and China.