U.S. Nears Trade Deal Finish Line as Deadline Looms

With just over a month until the July 9 cutoff, the Deputy Treasury Secretary signals Washington’s sprint to ink key trade agreements—because nothing motivates bureaucrats like a hard deadline.

Deal-makers are burning midnight oil to finalize terms, though skeptics note these last-minute pushes often yield more loopholes than solutions. Will this round be different? Don’t hold your breath.

U.S. stock indexes drop as trade tensions with China rise

Major U.S. stock indexes opened lower Monday, weighed down by investor concerns over rising trade tensions between the U.S. and China.

The tariff-driven trade war between Washington and Beijing appeared to ease last month following talks in Switzerland, but heated up again last week. The Trump administration accused China of violating a preliminary trade agreement by delaying its pledge to resume exporting critical minerals to the United States.

On Monday, China rejected those claims and countered that the U.S. had undermined the Geneva deal by imposing new restrictions on Chinese student visas, among other measures.

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said last Tuesday that the administration does not want to “harm Apple” with tariffs.

He said, “Everybody is trying to make it seem like it’s a catastrophe if there’s a tiny little tariff on them right now, to try to negotiate down the tariffs. In the end, we’ll see what happens, we’ll see what the update is, but we don’t want to harm Apple.”

Hassett’s comments followed a social media post by President Trump, in which the president said that Apple will have to pay a tariff of 25% or more for iPhones made outside the U.S. Apple has traditionally manufactured its products in countries such as China, India and Vietnam.

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