Businesses, consumers and foreign leaders are trying to assess just how set in stone President Trump’s tariffs are, as the administration and its allies send mixed signals about whether the measures are being used for leverage.

Some Trump allies touted the tariffs — which have led to a massive stock market selloff and heightened fears of a recession — as the latest move from a master dealmaker. The tariffs, they argue, will force other countries to change their practices in search of leniency from the U.S.

The president himself told reporters the tariffs “give us great power to negotiate,” and he said Friday he’d had a “productive” conversation with the leader of Vietnam about tariff rates.

“I wouldn’t want to be the last country that tries to negotiate a trade deal with @realDonaldTrump,” Eric Trump, the president’s son, posted on the social platform X. “The first to negotiate will win - the last will absolutely lose.”

At the same time, President Trump on Friday declared in a Truth Social post that his policies "will never change."

Meanwhile, multiple top administration officials were adamant that the tariffs were not meant as a negotiating tool, but as a way to rebalance global trade and revitalize American manufacturing.

“I don't think there's any chance they're going to — that President Trump's going to back off his tariffs. This is the reordering of global trade, right? That's what's going to happen,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Thursday on CNN.

Peter Navarro, a vocal trade hawk, said around the rollout of the tariffs that it was “not a negotiation” but a “national emergency” related to trade deficits.

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