(April 10): White House National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett said that trade talks with some US counterparts are already well along, including deals that were close to done last week.

“We’ve got a few deals that we’ve been working on ahead of this that are really, really well advanced,” Hassett said on CNBC Thursday. He didn’t specify which countries were involved in those talks ahead of President Donald Trump’s announcement of a 90-day pause on retaliatory tariffs with most trading partners Wednesday.

Hassett later told reporters that he’d been informed by the US Trade Representative’s office that “about 15” countries have made “explicit offers that we’re studying and considering — and deciding whether they’re good enough to present to the president.”

There will be a high-level meeting Thursday at the White House to discuss the path forward, Hasset said. “This is a really, really fast process now — that’s not beginning today or yesterday,” Hassett said.

Hassett said that there had been discussion within the administration on whether to go with the pause or to announce that a few deals were just about finalised — in order to “make it clear to markets that we’re serious about the strategy that we’re following.”

“The president chose this path,” he said of the decision to pause levies against those nations not retaliating against the US — pointedly leaving out China.

While not specifying that Switzerland was among the nations with advanced talks, Hassett did say that Trump held an “incredibly congenial” call Wednesday morning with that country’s president.

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