Howard Lutnick, U.S. Secretary of Commerce speaks during the Pennsylvania Energy And Innovation Summit 2025 at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh on July 15, 2025.
David A. Grogan | CNBC
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Sunday that Aug. 1 is the deadline for countries to begin paying tariffs to the United States, but said that “nothing stops countries from talking to us after August 1.”
“That’s a hard deadline, so on August 1, the new tariff rates will come in,” Lutnick said on CBS News, when asked about the deadline for his tariffs on the European Union.
President Donald Trump’s tariff deadline has shifted since he announced his steep levies on trading partners on April 2, but White House officials now maintain that Aug. 1 is a firm deadline.
“Nothing stops countries from talking to us after August 1, but they’re going to start paying the tariffs on August 1,” Lutnick said.
Lutnick said that some small countries, “the Latin American countries, the Caribbean countries, many countries in Africa,” would have a baseline tariff of 10%.
Lutnick’s comments could bring relief for nations anxiously awaiting a definitive decision on tariff rates from Trump, who recently suggested that baseline tariff rates for these nations could be over 10%.
The president announced last week that letters to smaller countries would be sent out soon. “We’ll probably set one tariff for all of them … probably a little over 10%,” Trump said.
Lutnick added that “the bigger economies will either open themselves up or they’ll pay a fair tariff to America.”
Lutnick’s comments come after Trump earlier this month sent letters to trading partners notifying them of the new tariff rates, which reached as high as 40% for some nations.
The letters, posted on Trump’s Truth Social, said that tariffs would take effect Aug. 1, prompting last-minute negotiations from trading partners seeking a lower rate.