U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Sunday warned that countries that don’t make trade deals with the U.S. will return to their April 2 tariff rates starting in August, while noting that the Trump administration expects a flurry of trade agreements to be completed this week ahead of President Donald Trump’s original deadline.

In the spring, Trump announced he would be pausing his sweeping tariffs on most countries for 90 days to allow them time to negotiate with the U.S. That deadline is set to expire on Wednesday, but Bessent said countries wouldn’t immediately be hit with higher rates, even though the administration has produced only a handful of agreements.

“President Trump’s going to be sending letters to some of our 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,” Bessent told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “So I think we’re going to see a lot of deals very quickly.”

Still, Bessent denied that the administration was effectively setting a new deadline for countries to fall in line.

“It’s not a new deadline,” Bessent told CNN’s Dana Bash. “We are saying this is when it’s happening. If you want to speed things up, have at it. If you want to go back to the old rate, that’s your choice.”

So far, the administration has inked only two preliminary trade agreements, with Vietnam and the United Kingdom, as well as a trade framework with China, one of the hardest-hit targets in Trump’s trade war. But Bessent insisted there’s more to come this week.

“We are close to several deals as always,” he said. “There’s a lot of foot-dragging on the other side and, you know, so I would expect to see several big announcements over the next couple of days.”

Trump echoed Bessent, telling his Truth Social followers that the first tariff letters to several U.S. trading partners setting out the import taxes their goods would face in the U.S. in the absence of a trade deal would be delivered at midday on Monday.

But he later warned that any country that aligns itself with the “Anti-American policies of BRICS,” a bloc including but not limited to Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, would face an additional 10% tariff.

“There will be no exceptions to this policy,” he wrote on Truth Social.

Trump’s warning came after the group issued a statement following its meeting in Rio de Janeiro over the weekend decrying the effect of tariffs on global trade and international supply chains, without naming the U.S. or Trump. The bloc also condemned the ongoing war in Gaza as well as the strikes against Iran last month.