Trump says he is 'not looking' at tariff pause

WASHINGTON

US President Donald Trump said Monday that he is "not looking" to pause tariffs but signaled that he is open to negotiations with countries.

"Well, we're not looking at that," Trump told reporters at the White House along with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when asked about a potential pause in his tariffs, which are set to take effect later this week.

"We have many, many countries that are coming to negotiate deals with us and they're going to be fair deals, and in certain cases, they're going to be paying substantial tariffs. There'll be fair deals," he added.

Last Wednesday, Trump announced the imposition of a 10% minimum tariff on all imports and even higher reciprocal tariffs on the US's biggest trading partners, including China and the European Union.

He said he had spoken Monday morning with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

"I said one thing. You're going to have to open up your country, because we sell no cars ‒ like zero cars ‒ in Japan, and they sell millions of cars into our country," he said.

Trump stressed that virtually every country wants to negotiate with the US, including Israel, whose goods face a 17% US tariff.

He said the US may not decrease tariffs on Israel.

“Well, we’re talking about a whole new trade — maybe not, maybe not. Now don’t forget, we help Israel a lot. You know, we give Israel $4 billion a year. That’s a lot.”

Netanyahu pledged to eliminate the trade deficit with the US.

"We intend to do it very quickly. We think it's the right thing to do and we're going to also eliminate trade barriers," he said.