Despite repeatedly touting his administration’s tough stance on trade, former President Donald Trump has now inadvertently admitted that not a single trade deal has been finalized under his watch—even after imposing sweeping tariffs and promising aggressive negotiations.
During a recent high-stakes meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to discuss tariffs, Trump appeared to downplay the urgency of securing formal agreements, offering a rambling defense of his administration’s strategy. “Everyone says, ‘When, when, when, are you going to sign deals?’ We don’t have to sign deals!” Trump declared. “They have to sign deals with us. They want a piece of our market… We don’t care about their market.”
The former president’s remarks seemed to signal a shift in expectations—acknowledging that the administration has not finalized any trade deals while attempting to reframe the narrative as one of deliberate strategy rather than diplomatic failure.
The contradiction was hard to ignore. Just weeks ago, Trump boasted that he had secured as many as 200 trade agreements—an assertion that drew immediate skepticism, not least because there are only 195 countries in the world. His team has since struggled to clarify what those “agreements” might have entailed, raising fresh concerns about the credibility of the administration’s trade claims.
On Tuesday, rather than announcing concrete outcomes, Trump floated a new approach: offering informal, piecemeal proposals to individual countries. He claimed that within two weeks, he would sit down with Cabinet members to outline specific offers for nations seeking tariff relief.
“We’re going to say, ‘Here’s what we want, and congratulations, we have a deal!’” Trump said, adding that countries would be free to either accept or reject the terms.
The so-called “offers,” according to Trump, would contain what he described as “very fair numbers”—but also left room for additional, unspecified demands. He suggested the deals would be flexible and adjusted depending on a country’s response. “And then you people will say, ‘Oh, it’s so chaotic.’ No, we’re flexible,” he told reporters.
But for many economists and trade experts, this flexibility sounds more like confusion. What was once framed as a bold, assertive trade agenda now appears increasingly unmoored from diplomatic norms or measurable progress. Critics argue that the administration’s rhetoric has masked an alarming lack of actual achievements.
Trump himself eventually admitted the deals aren’t even the real goal. “In some cases we’ll sign some deals,” he said. “It’s much less important than what I’m talking about.” He went so far as to say that he could present “100 offers in one day,” and if no one signs, that’s apparently fine.
Still, he emphasized that any country wishing to trade with the U.S. should, in his words, “pay for the privilege of being able to shop in the United States of America.”
Whether this strategy amounts to negotiating strength or political theater remains to be seen. But one thing is now clear: for all the talk about winning on trade, the scoreboard remains largely empty.
