US President Donald Trump’s 90-day pause on implementing so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on some 180 trading partners ends on July 8.

How are countries responding to the threat, and will the tariffs be re-applied from July 9?

The United States is demanding four things from all trading partners, while offering little in return. So these negotiations are anything but “reciprocal”.

The main demand is to rebalance bilateral goods trade between the US and other countries.

Nations with trade surpluses – meaning they export a greater value of goods than they import from the US – will be encouraged to import more from the US and/or export less to it.

The US is also pushing countries to eliminate a range of “non-tariff barriers” that may affect US export competitiveness.

These barriers are drawn from the United States Trade Representative’s (USTR) March 2025 report and include a variety of perceived “unfair” practices, from value-added taxes (such as the goods and services tax) to biosecurity standards such as those Australia applies to agricultural imports.

In a nod to the “tech bros”, (alleged) restrictions on digital trade services, such as Australia’s media bargaining code, and digital service taxes must be removed, along with taxes on the tech giants.

On Monday, Canada dropped a new digital service tax on firms such as Google and Meta after Trump suspended trade talks.

Jeff Bezos, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Elon Musk at Trump’s inauguration. Photo: AAP.

Put together, this is a difficult package for any government to accept without securing something in return.

Trump has been fond of saying the United States holds “all the cards” in trade negotiations.

It’s not known precisely how many countries are negotiating bilateral deals with Washington. Between 10 and 18 countries are priority “targets”, or to........

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