U.S. stocks have come roaring back after cratering at the onset of President Trump’s trade war, with the S&P 500 index hitting a record high last week following a new agreement with the United Kingdom and the loose confirmation of a broadly defined deal between the U.S. and China.

While stock markets are in the black again, formal legal text of the China deal has yet to be released and businesses are bracing for the dozens of country-specific trade deals that are still being worked out.

Those include prospective deals with a group of “key 18” countries, as designated by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. While the White House is pursuing deals on a country-by-country basis following the April 2 launch of novel “reciprocal” tariffs, deals could also be combined into regional agreements.

Trade experts are emphasizing caution amid a negotiation process that has been marked by rapid-fire announcements and reversals.

“If there’s anything that I would have observed since April 2 and earlier in the year, it’s that the situation changes very quickly and on very short time horizons,” Willy Shih, a professor of business operations at the Harvard Business School, told The Hill on Monday.

“It looks like a China deal and maybe some of these other ones are coming in for a landing, but you never know,” he said.

How are negotiations going?

Bessent said last week he’s eyeing initial deals with about a dozen of the “key 18” U.S. trading partners before Labor Day, citing Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

“He expects 10 more deals. If we can ink 10 or 12 of the important 18 — or there are another important 20 relationships — then I think we could have trade wrapped up by Labor Day,” he said.

Bessent said negotiations are favoring the U.S.

“Whether it’s at Treasury, at USTR, at Commerce — people who’ve been around for 20 years are in amazement, and they’re saying that countries are coming with offers that they can’t believe.”

“All these countries are pulling back,” he added.

However, trade experts say there’s a lot more pushback happening at the negotiating table than the administration is admitting.

“Countries are not cooperating in ways that I think the administration wanted them to cooperate,” Bill Reinsch, head of the international business program at the........

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