President Donald Trump is ratcheting up tough trade negotiations by threatening to place much

higher tariffs on several countries starting on August 1st. Most of the 14 countries targeted

are in Asia, including Japan and South Korea, some of the U.S.'s largest trading partners

and staunchest allies. William Brangham joins us now with more. William.

That's right, Omna. In addition to those, some of the other nations targeted are Myanmar and Laos at 40%,

Cambodia and Thailand at 36%. Japan and South Korea will get 25% tariffs. For more on the implications this will have on the

relationship between America and its Asian allies, we are joined by Wendy Cutler. She's the

vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute and previously was acting deputy U.S. trade

representative. Wendy Cutler, thank you so much for being

here. I wonder how serious are these nations taking these tariff threats? The president argues

that he is making them to trigger dealmaking. Do you believe that that's what's going to actually

happen here?

Look, I think these countries are taking these letters that were sent yesterday very seriously.

For most Asian countries, the U.S. is their largest export market, so high tariffs would really

have serious implications for them. So I expect to see

negotiations to intensify until the next deadline set by the president of August 1.

I mean, the president argues that he's imposing these tariffs to counter what he argues are unfair

tariffs put by those other countries upon the United States.

Is that a fair argument that he's making?

Well, look, countries could open their markets more, and frankly, I think some success is already

being made to get countries to lower their tariffs and get rid of their non-tariff measures.

But take a country like Korea, where we have a free trade agreement, we have zero tariffs

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