Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick expressed confidence Sunday that the Trump administration will cut trade deals with key U.S. trading partners in the coming weeks — before steep tariffs kick in for dozens of countries.

President Trump on Tuesday announced that his administration had reached an agreement with Japan on trade, which would see the U.S. impose a 15 percent tariff on Japanese goods. Trump posted on

U.S. and Chinese officials will meet in Stockholm next week to discuss an extension to the deadline for negotiating a trade deal, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday as President Donald Trump announced a deal with the Philippines and released terms of a previous deal with Indonesia.

Lutnick is “an amplifying influence” on Trump, another person close to the Commerce Secretary told me. He and the President both love the idea of using tariffs to erase America’s trade deficits and as a form of redress for what they view as decades of, as Trump puts it, getting “ripped off.”

With less than two weeks to go before country-specific tariffs could rise sharply, the Trump administration is drawing a lot of questions about what’s ahead.

Steep tariff rates are set to go back into effect after a 90-day pause on the April 2 rates that rocked the stock market.

The Trump administration is more concerned with the quality of trade agreements rather than their timing, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Monday ahead of an Aug. 1 deadline for securing a trade deal or facing steep tariffs.

This week’s Fresh Take also looks at tariff-proof yaupon tea, an L.A. fire survivor’s insurance nightmare, a farmworker’s death in connection to an ICE raid and more.