The administration says we are on “Trump time”. Any bets?

90 Deals in 90 Days

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told Fox Business the Trump administration will “run 90 deals in 90 days.” His proclamation comes after Trump issued blanket tariffs of at least 10 percent on nearly every country — then placed a 90-day pause on most of the tariffs Wednesday.

Navarro added Trump will be “the boss” and “chief negotiator” of these supposed deals: “Nothing is done without him looking very carefully at it.”

Rule out China, the EU, Mexico, and Canada at a minimum. More likely, it’s all of them, discounting agreements to agree.

Anatomy of a Deal

The Wall Street Journal comments on deal difficulties in Anatomy of a Trade Deal

Even a single trade deal can take years, so 90 deals in 90 days is an insanely aggressive goal. Because it isn’t as if these deals are just about settling on tariff numbers. The Trump team has repeatedly noted that it wants wholesale change in the more expansive universe of “trade barriers”—foreign laws, regulations and policies that impede competition. For an idea of the challenge of cementing even one of the deals (much less dozens) consider India, a useful example given that it boasts a wide array of the barriers Trump wants to upend:

India in 2024 exported more than twice the value of goods ($87.4 billion) to the U.S. that it imported from us, leading to a $45.7 billion trade deficit. Trump remains obsessively focused on these imbalances, including India’s, which grew to nearly twice the size it was at the end of Trump’s first term. And while India is the U.S.’s 10th-largest trading partner, the U.S. is India’s top export market—making it highly vulnerable to the Trump tariff regime and eager to talk.

Tariff rates: A recently released USTR report on global trade barriers (broken out by country), notes that India’s average applied tariff rate was 17%—“the highest of any major world economy”—and that its maximum rate on certain agricultural goods (the most allowed under World Trade Organization commitments) can hit 300%. A Reuters analysis of WTO data found that (prior to Trump’s new tariffs) the U.S. applied a trade- weighted average tariff rate on India of about 2.2%, whereas India imposed a weighted average on the U.S. of 12%. That’s a big gap to narrow all on its own. Now add the other “barriers.”

Food fight: India’s average tariff of 38% on agricultural goods grates on U.S. exporters, though for some products the number is significantly higher: apples and corn (50%); flowers (60%); coffee, raisin, walnuts (100%). The U.S. is also frustrated with India’s range of subsidies and supports for its agriculture sector, which include subsidies for inputs like fuel and fertilizer, crop insurance and debt waivers (though the U.S. does plenty of its own ag subsidizing). And then there’s India’s “Minimum Support Price” program for key products—including rice and wheat—which the USTR report labels the worst sort of distortions, as it “bolsters planting decisions, resulting in overproduction, limited demand for imports and artificial export competitiveness.” The Trump team wants sweeping changes to this domestic farm program.

Import restrictions: India bans a range of items from coming into the country (for instance oils of animal origin, or ethanol for fuel use). It requires import licenses for others goods—including livestock products, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, technology products, and refurbished goods—which U.S. exporters complain are difficult to obtain. And it maintains a list of goods that can be imported only by government-controlled monopolies. U.S. negotiators want to an end to much of this.

Service barriers: India significantly restricts foreign equity in, and foreign participation in, many professional services, including banking and insurance, as well payments, telecom, accounting and legal services. One example: While India in 2023 said it would for the first time allow foreign law firms to open offices to practice international law, it has yet to get going on registrations. The administration has a huge list of demands here, as well as complaints about digital trade barriers and copyright and patent law.

Put it in the U.S. context: Trump negotiators would never be able to promise sweeping changes to the U.S. farm subsidy system, since Congress’s farm-state caucus (Republicans and Democrats alike) would refuse to go along.

Trump in this case isn’t likely to have to promise much of anything, even though some of its complaints are exaggerated and though India has its own legitimate gripes about U.S. trade barriers. The severity of the Trump tariff threat, and India’s reliance on the U.S. import market, is likely to make this a particularly one-sided deal. India’s barriers are voluminous enough that it even a modest retreat may be enough to allow Trump to claim a big win and move on. Indeed, don’t be surprised if many of the big “deals” contain relatively minor adjustments to thorny trade barriers.

But that won’t be the scenario in negotiations (if there are any) between the U.S. and its own largest export markets—Canada, Mexico, the EU, China—which have the heft to make demands of their own. In short, best of luck to those negotiators. They are going to need it. And a whole lot of—preferably nontariffed—coffee.

Will There Be a Single Comprehensive Deal?

It seems highly unlikely given Trump’s inane definition of reciprocal.

It’s possible we see some fluff announcements on some minor aspect that don’t amount to much.

Perhaps the penguins on the uninhabited islands of Heard and McDonald Islands are ready to sign.

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