US Bessent mentioned the possibility of wrapping up trade discussions by Labor Day, which falls on September 1st in the US. This statement implies that there is no fixed deadline in July or at any other time before Labor Day.

There have been 10 or 12 deals discussed, but there are 20 additional ones deemed more important. This suggests ongoing negotiations that extend beyond the initial agreements.

Flexibility In Trade Talks Timing

Bessent mentioned the potential for concluding trade discussions around Labor Day in the United States, which is on the 1st of September. This reference to timing tells us that there is flexibility surrounding the closure of these talks—there’s no pressure to finish by July, for instance. In fact, there seems to be a deliberate effort to avoid creating a rigid timetable.

So far, a number of deals—between ten and twelve—have been brought to the table. While that might sound like movement, we’ve been told that double that number remain on the horizon and are seen as carrying more weight in terms of impact. These aren’t minor footnotes—they matter more than the earlier group. The way this is being framed tells us something very practical: we’re in the early to middle stages of the process, not at a point where outcomes are decided.

Managing Expectations During Ongoing Negotiations

What this means for us over the next several weeks is that visibility remains blurred. Activity is taking place, but little has yet been priced with foundation. For us, the breadth of talks still in motion indicates that expectations need to be patiently managed. It won’t be helpful to lean too hard on early chatter or preliminary deal numbers. Those can shift, and they probably will.

With that in mind, we ought to pay more attention to how implied volatility moves in response to new headlines or formal updates. As more weighty deals emerge into the open, the distance between sentiment and currently positioned risk could widen quickly. We’ve seen this before—where a late-stage agreement forces repricing all at once because early assumptions were built on incomplete frameworks. Likely, many of these twenty are still in draft form or under soft negotiation, which further distances us from clarity.

In short, we aren’t facing a tide that is pulling away from us just yet—but it’s one that could come in swiftly once talks graduate from possibility to proposal. That’s the axis where sentiment will shift. So, in the absence of confirmed schedules or commitments, we’ll do better to model response scenarios based on clusters of agreement types rather than anchoring to a calendar.

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