Tariff Pause Tests Trump's Frenzied Dealmaking

On "Liberation Day" on April 2, Donald Trump gushed about how trade was finally going to tilt in America's favor after decades of its workers and companies being "plundered." For the President, unfettered tariffs would soon make the US "an entirely different country."

- JENNY LEONARD

Spelling out his policy of so-called reciprocity with trading partners, he said, "that means they do it to us and we do it to them, very simple, can't get any simpler than that."

Three months later, the transformation is proving harder and slower to execute than advertised.

As Wednesday's tariff deadline approached with less than a handful of agreements—or mere frameworks of them—ready to announce, the Trump administration is effectively conceding that its self-imposed deadline was too optimistic for a full teardown and rebuilding of the old architecture of the US-led global trading system.