50 nations want US trade talks amid tariffs - White House

More than 50 nations have reached out to the White House to begin trade talks since US President Donald Trump rolled out sweeping new tariffs, his economic advisers have said.

Representatives of the Trump administration have sought to defend levies that wiped out nearly $6 trillion in value from US stocks last week and downplayed economic fallout.

This morning, Mr Trump's top economic advisers sought to portray the tariffs as a savvy repositioning of the US in the global trade order. They also tried to minimize the economic fallout from last week's tumultuous rollout, ahead of tomorrow's expected bumpy opening of Asian stock markets.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said more than 50 nations had started negotiations with the US since last Wednesday's announcement, putting Mr Trump in a position of power.

Neither Mr Bessent nor the other officials named the countries or offered details about the talks. However, holding simultaneous negotiations with so many countries at once could potentially pose a huge logistical challenge for the Trump administration. It is not clear how long such talks would last.

Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te has offered zero tariffs as the basis for talks with the US, pledging to remove trade barriers and saying Taiwanese companies will raise their US investments.

"He's created maximum leverage for himself," Mr Bessent said on NBC News.

Mr Bessent downplayed the stock market drop and said there was "no reason" to anticipate a recession based on the tariffs, citing stronger-than-anticipated US jobs growth.

"We could see from the jobs number on Friday, that was well above expectations, that we are moving forward, so I see no reason that we have to price in a recession," Mr Bessent said.

Mr Trump jolted economies around the world after he announced broad tariffs on US imports, triggering retaliatory levies from China and sparking fears of a global trade war and recession.

US stocks tumbled by around 10% in the two days since Mr Trump announced a new global tariff regime that was more aggressive than analysts and investors had been anticipating.

Analysts and large investors blamed the stock market drop on Mr Trump's tariff push, which most economists and the head of the US Federal Reserve believe risk stoking inflation and damaging economic growth.

JPMorgan economists now estimate the tariffs will result in full-year gross domestic product declining by 0.3%, down from an earlier estimate of 1.3% growth, and that the unemployment rate will climb to 5.3% from 4.2% now.

Tariff-stunned markets face another week of potential turmoil after the worst week for US stocks since the onset of the Covid-19 crisis five years ago.

The S&P 1500 Composite Index, among the widest measures of the US market, lost nearly $6 trillion in value in the two days after Mr Trump's announcement, and has had almost $10 trillion wiped out since mid-February, a significant blow to millions of Americans' retirement nest eggs.

During an interview on ABC News' 'This Week,' US National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett denied that the tariffs were part of a Trump strategy to crash financial markets to pressure the US Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, saying there would be no "political coercion" of the central bank.

In a Truth Social post on Friday, Mr Trump shared a video that suggested his tariffs aimed to hammer the stock market on purpose in a bid to force lower interest rates.

The social media post fueled global debate over whether Mr Trump's tariffs were part of a permanent new tariff regime or simply a negotiating tactic that could lead to the tariffs being eased through concessions by other countries.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested on CBS News 'Face the Nation' that they could be the latter, saying the tariffs would remain in place "for days and weeks". He said the reciprocal tariffs would be rolled out as planned on 9 April.

The process used to determine the tariffs came under scrutiny last week after they were applied to uninhabited Antarctic islands populated by penguins and other tiny, remote places.

Mr Lutnick said a comprehensive approach was needed so that small nations could not be used by larger countries to circumvent the tariffs.

"Basically (Trump) said, 'I can't let any part of the world be a place where China or other countries can ship through them,'" Mr Lutnick said.

Billionaire Elon Musk, a Trump adviser, said yesterday he hoped in future to see complete freedom of trade between the US and Europe.

Peter Navarro, a Trump trade adviser, dismissed the idea of a rift between Mr Musk and the Trump administration over the tariff policy but said the Tesla CEO was looking out for his business interests.

"There is no rift here," Mr Navarro told Fox News.

Tariffs upending 'world as we knew it', says Starmer

The "world as we knew it" is over, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said, as the world braced for further fallout from the introduction of US tariffs.

Mr Trump's announcement of sweeping tariffs on Wednesday shows that "old assumptions can no longer be taken for granted," Mr Starmer said in a op-ed for the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

"The world as we knew it has gone," he wrote.

The new world will be governed less by established rules and "more by deals and alliances," added the prime minister.

The tariffs have already sent markets into a tailspin, and all eyes will be on tomorrow's opening with Mr Trump warning Americans of pain ahead.

"This is an economic revolution, and we will win," the Republican president wrote on Truth Social yesterday. "Hang tough, it won't be easy, but the end result will be historic."

Mr Trump's 34% tariff on Chinese goods is set to kick in next week, triggering Beijing's announcement of a 34% levy on US products from 10 April.

The EU and Japan are also among around 60 trading partners set to face even higher rates on 9 April, raising fears of recessions in some of the world's leading economies.

Wednesday's announcement has sent countries scrambling for a response, and Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa said that he would suspend all tariffs on goods imported from the US after being hit with an 18% levy.

The UK has so far got off relatively lightly with a 10% tariff, and Mr Starmer wrote that the country's response "demands the best of British virtues - cool heads, pragmatism and a clear understanding of our national interest."

The UK leader reiterated his government's belief that "nobody wins from a trade war" and that the immediate strategy was "to keep calm and fight for the best deal."

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However, he insisted a US trade deal will only be struck "if it is right for British business" and that "all options remain on the table" in responding to the tariffs.

The new levies mark "the most sweeping tariff hike since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, the 1930 law best remembered for triggering a global trade war and deepening the Great Depression," said the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

In an immediate sign of the fallout, UK luxury car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover said yesterday that it will "pause" shipments to the United States in April as it addressed "the new trading terms".

Recognising the shifting global economic sands, Mr Starmer said that he was now prepared to use direct state intervention to protect certain sectors.

"This week we will turbocharge plans that will improve our domestic competitiveness," he wrote, ahead of an expected major announcement on industrial strategy.

"We stand ready to use industrial policy to help shelter British business from the storm.

"Some people may feel uncomfortable about this... but we simply cannot cling on to old sentiments when the world is turning this fast," he added.