Trump Says Country Sought to Renegotiate US Trade Deal

‘If we didn’t have tariffs, the situation would be in serious trouble,’ the president said.

President Donald Trump looks on during the swearing-in ceremony of U.S. Ambassador to India Sergio Gor in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on Nov. 10, 2025. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

President Donald Trump said on Nov. 17 that a country attempted to renegotiate a trade agreement with the United States.

“I wasn’t happy about it,” Trump told reporters at an Oval Office event.

He did not provide further details.

These remarks follow the White House’s recent trade agreements with Argentina, Ecuador, El Salvador, and Guatemala. The administration also struck a deal with Switzerland, effectively lowering U.S. tariff rates to 15 percent from 39 percent and securing more than $200 billion in Swiss investment over the next three years.

Earlier this month, Trump stated that the United States was “pretty close” to reaching a trade agreement with India.

“Right now they don’t love me, but they’ll love us again,” Trump said. “We’re getting a fair deal.”

Trump reiterated that his tariffs are bringing in “hundreds of billions of dollars.”

“If we didn’t have tariffs, the situation would be in serious trouble,“ he said. ”And we’ve taken in tremendous amounts of money. And you know, what’s more important than that?”

The president also reaffirmed his plans to use the tariff income to pay down the national debt and later issue dividend checks for lower-income Americans.

In an interview with Fox Business’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated that a rebate check would require congressional approval.

“It’s a lot of money,” Trump said on Nov. 14. “But we’ve taken in a lot of money from tariffs. The tariffs allow us to give a dividend.”

Last week, Trump signed an executive order reducing levies on a broad array of commodities, such as bananas, beef, and coffee.

Bessent said he believes that more Americans will experience economic relief early next year, citing the various provisions within Trump’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“So I would expect in the first two quarters we are going to see the inflation curve bend down and the real income curve substantially accelerate,” he said.

Now that the record-breaking government shutdown has come to an end, key economic reports will be released, including jobs and inflation.

For weeks, economic observers have turned to alternative private-sector measurements to gauge the economy’s health. Recent data suggest that consumer price inflation has cooled, while the U.S. labor market continues to slow.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics will publish the September nonfarm payrolls data on Nov. 20. The market consensus suggests that the economy created 50,000 new jobs and the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.3 percent, according to FactSet.

The White House has warned that the prolonged shutdown “may have permanently impaired” the federal statistical system, pointing specifically to the October consumer price index and employment data.

“All of that economic data released will be permanently impaired, leaving our policymakers at the Fed flying blind at a critical period,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a press briefing last week.

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said in a Nov. 14 Fox Business interview that the Bureau of Labor Statistics was unable to collect complete data.