Finance

Trump shifts tariff goals from trade deals

Published

4 weeks ago

May 6, 2025

U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney (not pictured) in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 6, 2025.

Leah Millis | Reuters

“The Art of the Deal” author President Donald Trump said in a surprising comment Tuesday that the United States does not need to “sign deals” with trade partners, despite top White House officials claiming for weeks that such deals are the administration’s top priority.

“Everyone says, ‘when, when, when are you going to sign deals?'” Trump grumbled during a White House meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

“We don’t have to sign deals, they have to sign deals with us. They want a piece of our market. We don’t want a piece of their market,” Trump said.

After weeks of touting how many countries were asking for bilateral trade talks with the United States, the president and his team have yet to announce any formal agreements or frameworks.

“I wish they’d … stop asking, how many deals are you signing this week?” said Trump, clearly frustrated at the mounting pressure on the White House to show progress on trade talks. “Because one day we’ll come and we’ll give you 100 deals,” he said.

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Trump’s effort to deprioritize trade deals Tuesday marked a turn away from what his Treasury Secretary told CNBC the day before.

The U.S. is “very close to some deals,” Scott Bessent said on “Money Movers.”

Trump himself said Sunday on Air Force One that there “could very well be” trade deals rolled out this week. “At the end, I’m setting the deal,” he told reporters en route to Washington.

Speaking last week during a NewsNation town hall, Trump also said that his administration has “potential deals” with India, South Korea and Japan.

He also said last week that negotiations with India were “coming along great” and the U.S. will “likely have a deal with India.”

On Tuesday, however, Trump blamed top aides like Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick for overpromising trade deals.

“I think my people haven’t made it clear, we will sign some deals,” said Trump. “But much bigger than that is we’re going to put down the price that people are going to have to pay to shop in the United States. Think of us as a super luxury store, a store that has the goods.”

U.S. markets moved lower Tuesday afternoon after Trump made the comments about deals.

Investors and business leaders are desperately hoping the Trump administration can negotiate a series of bilateral agreements with major U.S. trading partners like Japan, South Korea and India before the full brunt of the tariff induced trade slowdown hits the U.S. economy.

But so far, the Trump administration has not provided any details about any specific deals. Instead, nearly every day, top aides publicly claim that several deals are “close” and could be announced within days.

Peter Navarro: White House moving 'as fast as possible' on India trade deal

Finance

Klarna takes on banks with its own debit card

Published

37 minutes ago

June 3, 2025

Business Finance News

Klarna is synonymous with the “buy now, pay later” trend of making a purchase and deferring payment until the end of the month or paying over interest-free monthly installments.

Nikolas Kokovlis | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Swedish fintech Klarna — primarily known for its popular “buy now, pay later” services — is launching its own Visa debit card, as it looks to diversify its business beyond short-term credit products.

The company on Tuesday announced that it’s piloting the product, dubbed Klarna Card, with some customers in the U.S. ahead of a planned countrywide rollout. Klarna Card will launch in Europe later this year, the firm added.

The move highlights an ongoing effort from Klarna ahead of a highly anticipated initial public offering to shift its image away from the poster child of the buy now, pay later (BNPL) trend and be viewed as more of an all-encompassing banking player. BNPL products are interest-free loans that allow people to pay off the full price of an item over a series of monthly installments.

“We want Americans to start to associate us with not only buy now, pay later, but [with] the PayPal wallet type of experience that we have, and also the neobank offering that we offer,” Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski told CNBC’s “The Exchange” last month. “We are basically a neobank to a large degree, but people associate us still strongly with buy now, pay later.”

Klarna’s newly announced card comes with an account that can hold Federal Insurance Deposit Corporation (FDIC)-insured deposits and facilitate withdrawals — similar to checking accounts offered by mainstream banks.

Notably, Klarna Card is powered by Visa Flexible Credential, a service from the American card network that lets users access multiple funding sources — like debit, credit and BNPL — from a single payment card. It’s a debit card by default, but users can also toggle to one of Klarna’s “pay later” products, including “Pay in 4” and “Pay in 30 Days.”

Klarna is pushing deeper into a fiercely competitive consumer banking market. The U.S. banking industry is dominated by heavyweights such as JPMorgan Chase & Co and Bank of America, while fintech challengers like Chime have also attracted millions of customers.

While Klarna has a full banking license in the European Union, it does not have its own U.S. bank license. However, the firm says it’s able to offer FDIC-insured accounts through a partnership with WebBank, a small financial institution based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

WATCH: CNBC’s full interview with Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski