The clock is ticking on a race of President Donald Trump’s own making: a sprint to negotiate dozens of trade deals before his 90-day pause on some tariffs expires — talks that negotiators of past trade deals say come with a range of strategic and logistical hurdles due to Trump’s compressed timeline.
Trump announced last week that he was pausing some of his sweeping global tariffs to give his administration time to work out trade deals with 75 countries he said had reached out to the White House to offer concessions. While Trump later said the pause was also driven by volatility in the stock and bond markets, top administration officials sought to spin the move as an example of Trump’s deal-making prowess.
But translating that initial outreach from countries into actual trade deals, especially in such a short period of time, won’t come easy, said former trade negotiators. And that will likely limit the potential gains Trump hopes to make from these talks, they added.
Many of the significant trade barriers that countries have in place are there for a reason — to protect a key local industry, for example, or because of differing views over health and safety standards than in the U.S., like in food products. Hammering out those differences while navigating the different political and cultural nuances of each country will require back-and-forth discussions that could take months and involved dozens of officials across the federal government.
“Trade negotiations can be brutal, and they can take years,” said Warren Maruyama, who worked on trade deals during the George W. Bush administration as general counsel for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. “I don’t think this is going to be anywhere near as easy as some people are spinning it.”
Given the timeline, Maruyama and other former trade negotiators said it is unlikely the U.S. will make any major overhauls on trade, especially from its largest trading partners, like Japan and the European Union. Rather, the U.S. is more likely to be able to get some percentage decreases from countries on the tariff rate for certain U.S. exports — or agreements from countries to purchase a certain amount of U.S. products.
“These are not going to be multitier trade negotiations. We’re going to get one-page, two-page letters of understanding at the end of this,” said Myron Brilliant, who has been involved in every U.S. trade negotiation since the 1980s as a representative for private industries.
“Maybe those will have some wins for the administration and wins for American business and wins for American workers,” Brilliant said. “But it’s not going to be a wholesale change in the way that we’re doing business.”
How trade talks work
Trade negotiations can require staff from across federal agencies, including the Treasury Department, Commerce Department, State Department, Labor Department and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. If certain products, like beef or oil and gas, are being discussed, officials from the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy would also be involved, to give insight on how U.S. industries would be affected.
But many officials at those agencies have only recently stepped into their roles, given that the Trump administration is less than 100 days old. At the same time, the White House has been firing thousands of federal workers across those agencies.
Alex Jacquez, who worked for the National Economic Council during the Biden administration, said many staffers with whom he worked with in the trade office have left in recent months, thinning out an already thinly staffed area of the federal government. In the final days of the Biden administration, as officials were racing to finalize trade deals that had been in the works, they were constrained by a lack of manpower, Jacquez said.
“They’ve lost a ton of capacity. I think just about everybody I knew on the career side who was there has left, and they were short-staffed when we were there,” Jacquez said. “At some point, there’s just not enough bodies in the room to be able to do some of this work, especially on this time frame.”
Trump suggested last week that he could get extra manpower for his trade negotiations from private law firms that have struck deals with the White House. The terms include agreements to provide free legal work in exchange for avoiding potentially ruinous restrictions Trump has threatened against firms who have represented clients or issues he opposes.
That would be a largely unprecedented move, said former trade officials. While past administrations have consulted with outside industry groups or unions on trade deals to get their perspective, government officials are the ones tasked with negotiating on behalf of the U.S. government and ensuring any trade agreements comply with U.S. laws.
It could also carry a range of conflicts for the law firms — like if a firm has clients in a country that it has been tasked with helping negotiations.
None of the law firms that have reached deals with the White House responded to requests for comment.
Negotiating trade agreements also takes a certain level of expertise that differs from hammering out a business deal. Maruyama said trade negotiators need to understand the internal political dynamics of the other country, that country’s history and culture, and the needs of the U.S. industries and workers who will be affected by the deal.
“You need to have people who have done trade deals before. You have to understand the other side really, really well, and know what the U.S. industry really needs to penetrate a market,” said Maruyama.
“The key to successful trade negotiations is detailed preparation and a well thought-out strategy that gets you to a good outcome. You can’t just wing it,” he said. “Politics is also such a big factor. You’re dealing with foreign government officials, so you have to understand the other country’s political dynamics, negotiating style, and red lines.”