The secretary of commerce, Howard Lutnick, says the United States will likely maintain a “10 percent baseline tariff” going forward, regardless of what other nations do to lower their own trade barriers to appease President Trump. This week, after agreeing to a framework deal with the United Kingdom, the president lowered the tariff on that country’s exports to America to 10 percent. 

Mr. Lutnick, trade representative Jamieson Greer, and Secretary Bessent have taken the lead on trying to negotiate new trade agreements with foreign governments since Mr. Trump temporarily suspended his “Liberation Day” tariffs last month. Messrs. Bessent and Greer are currently meeting with officials from Communist China in Switzerland to try to strike a deal, though according to Chinese media, no progress is being made. 

Mr. Lutnick confirmed on Sunday that a 10 percent tariff is likely the best thing foreign governments and companies can hope for at this point. 

“We do expect a 10 percent baseline tariff to be in place for the foreseeable future,” Mr. Lutnick told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday morning. He claims that despite the tax hike, American consumers will not face higher prices. 

“The business and the [foreign] countries primarily eat the tariff,” the commerce secretary insisted, urging people to simply buy American. 

“Don’t buy the silly arguments that the U.S. consumer pays. Businesses — their job is to try to sell to the American consumer and domestically produced products are not gonna have that tariff, so the foreigners are gonna finally have to compete,” Mr. Lutnick said. 

“We will not go below 10 percent,” the secretary clarified after being pressed. “That is just not a place we’re going to go.”

The greatest hope for countries and foreign businesses to get their product back to the United States with that lower 10 percent tariff, Mr. Lutnick says, is for foreign governments to lower non-tariff barriers on American goods. He mentioned the U.S.-U.K. trade agreement framework announced this past week, which the administration says will result in more American agricultural products being available in the U.K.

“You saw the rates that were published on Liberation Day. Those countries can take those rates down if they open their markets to Americans to export. Let Americans get their stuff on these foreign governments’ and foreign consumers’ shelves, and we’ll be better as a country,” Mr. Lutnick said. “We just have never felt the fairness of our ability to export.”

Mr. Lutnick said Sunday the administration is working on “so many” potential deals with foreign governments, most notably the Chinese. 

According to the South China Morning Post — an English-language Hong Kong newspaper owned by the Alibaba Group — no deal is in sight to de-escalate the trade war brewing between the two countries, which threatens to leave many shelves empty here in the United States as the flow of goods from China slows substantially. 

Mr. Bessent, who along with Mr. Greer has been meeting with Chinese vice premier He Lifeng, claimed Sunday that “substantial progress” had been made between the U.S. and China following a second day of negotiations. 

“I’m happy to report that we’ve made substantial progress between the United States and China in the very important trade talks,” Mr. Bessent told reporters, without offering specifics.