'Why no announced deals yet?' Fox Business host busts Trump's economic adviser
Fox Business host Stuart Varney called out White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett because President Donald Trump has failed to ink a dozen or more trade deals that had been promised.
"Where do we stand on trade deals? The last we heard that we were getting close to 20 deals and we were promised that these deals would be announced soon," Varney said in a Wednesday interview. "But why no announced deals yet?"
"Well, first, there's a lot going on in the world, as you know," Hassett deflected, "and there's been a lot of focus over the last couple of days in the White House on getting the House bill through that pretty much almost the whole White House team was up working with Speaker Johnson yesterday."
"And I'm highly confident that you'll see a handful of new deals over the next two weeks," he continued. "But they're so close that I feel like we're very close to having some more announcements, and it's probably a handful of near-term announcements."
Varney pointed out that countries had "leverage" over the U.S. because they were aware Trump was anxious to sign trade deals.
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"So they've got some leverage because we want deals announced quickly," the Fox Business host explained.
"I don't think that that's the way I think about it," Hassett replied. "And I just got to say the extent to which countries around the world are opening up their markets to our products in these deals that I've been briefed on is astonishing."
"And so I think there's a lot of progress, and you're right, that we've got to put the progress on the table, but we're very soon to do it, and I wouldn't be saying that if it wasn't true," he added.