50+ countries seek trade talks over Trump admin's tariffs

White House officials stated Sunday that more than 50 nations have reached out, seeking to hold trade talks with the United States due to President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs.

Trump unveiled the reciprocal tariffs on April 2, which he dubbed "Liberation Day" for America. He imposed a baseline 10% tariff against nearly 90 countries, which went into effect on Saturday. Tariffs announced against individual countries are slated to begin on Wednesday.

'There is no postponing.'

White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told ABC News that he received a new report from the U.S. Trade Representative that revealed dozens of countries have contacted the administration to begin negotiations.

"So, the fact is, the countries are angry and retaliating and, by the way, coming to the table," Hassett stated.

He explained that the countries were reaching out to initiate negotiations "because they understand that they bear a lot of the tariff."

"And so, I don't think that you're going to see a big effect on the consumer in the U.S. because I do think that the reason why we have a persistent, long-run trade deficit is these people have very inelastic supply," Hassett continued. "They've been dumping goods into the country in order to create jobs, say, in China."

During an interview with CBS News, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick also discussed the dozens of nations pushing trade talks with the U.S.

"What it shows is that all these countries know that they've been ripping us off, and the day has come for that to end," he said.

When asked whether the president plans to postpone the tariffs to conduct negotiations, Lutnick replied, "There is no postponing. They are definitely going to stay in place for days and weeks. That is sort of obvious. The president needs to reset global trade. Everybody has a trade surplus, and we have a trade deficit."

"The tariffs are coming. [Trump] announced it, and he wasn't kidding," Lutnick added.

On Monday, Peter Navarro, White House trade adviser, discussed with CNBC Vietnam's offer to drop tariffs down to 0%.

"When they come to us and say 'we'll go to zero tariffs,' that means nothing to us because it's the nontariff cheating that matters," Navarro stated, noting how China circumvented Trump's tariffs during his first administration by routing its trade through Vietnam.

He also outlined intellectual property theft and VAT fees as additional examples of "nontariff cheating."

Navarro added, "We have tried at the World Trade Organization since the 1970s to get VAT-tax relief, and they've told us no every single time."

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