promised

July 31 (UPI) — President Donald Trump‘s suspension of reciprocal tariffs ends Friday and the United States has only managed a small portion of his goal for new trade deals.

Trump has pushed back his self-imposed deadlines on multiple occasions during his second term but said in a post on social media on Wednesday that Friday’s deadline will not be extended.

A day after the post, Trump announced a 90-day pause on new tariffs on Mexico as trade negotiations continue.

The United States has reached preliminary trade deals with at least five countries, though these framework agreements lack some publicly disclosed details. Trump has also announced an agreement with the European Union for a 15% tariff on most goods from the 27-nation bloc.

The European Union is the largest trade partner of the United States, exchanging about $605 billion in goods annually. The easing of tariffs on the European Union does not extend to the 50% tariffs on steel that Trump imposed earlier this year.

Trump’s tariff gambit sparked immediate economic turmoil with the hope that it would reset global trade in favor of the United States. He claimed to have made 200 deals in April, though details about those deals were never shared, and the administration called “90 deals in 90 days” a possibility.

While the administration is set to fall significantly short on its lofty goals, Trump has lauded the success of his tariff policy.

“We are very busy in the White House today working on Trade Deals,” Trump posted on Wednesday. “I have spoken to the Leaders of many Countries, all of whom want to make the United States ‘extremely happy.'”

Trump announced Wednesday on social media that negotiations continued this week with South Korea. The United States is imposing a 25% tariff on South Korean goods but Trump said South Korea has made an offer to “buy down” that tariff rate.

The agreement materialized on Thursday. The United States will reduce the tariff on South Korea to 15% based on South Korea agreeing to $350 billion in investments “owned and controlled” by the United States and selected by Trump.

China is among the United States’ biggest trade partners and a primary target of Trump’s tariff policy dating back to his first term in office. In June, Trump announced that the United States and China had come to an agreement over the trade of rare earth minerals.

As part of the agreement, China would export rare earth minerals to the United States and both countries would reduce their tariffs for 90 days. The rare earth minerals discussed are a crucial component in energy sources for mobile devices like smartphones as well as electric vehicles.

China is subject to a 34% reciprocal tariff that has been suspended until Aug. 12. The tariff is on all products, including those originating from Hong Kong and Macau. In response, China has increased tariffs on the United States by more than 120% since Trump took office.

July was the busiest month in terms of trade announcements, starting with a deal reached with Vietnam on July 2. According to Trump, Vietnam will pay a 20% tariff on all goods exported to the United States and 40% on goods that are transhipped through Vietnam to the United States.

U.S. exports to Vietnam face no tariff.

As Trump discussed trade with Vietnam, he cast doubt that an agreement would be reached with Japan. He imposed a 24% tariff on the ally nation.

According to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the United States and Japan traded $227.9 billion in goods in 2024. The United States exported about $79.7 billion to Japan, an increase of more than 5% over 2023. The United States also imported about $148.2 billion in goods, or about a $971 million increase.

“Japan will continue to engage vigorously in sincere and honest discussions toward the realization of an agreement that will benefit both Japan and the United States,” said Kazuhiko Aoki, Japan’s deputy chief cabinet secretary.

Trump met with the leaders of five African nations — Senegal, Liberia, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Gabon — in July to discuss increased trade activity.

“We’re shifting from aid to trade,” he said. “In the long run, this will be far more effective and sustainable and beneficial than anything else that we could be doing together.”

Trump said at the time there was a possibility that the five countries would be exempted from reciprocal tariffs. No agreements have been officially announced since the meeting took place.

A similar deal with Indonesia was announced days later by the president. Trump said he reached an agreement that would see Indonesia pay a 19% tariff on U.S. exports while dropping most tariffs on the United States.

Trump added that the agreement includes a commitment by Indonesia to purchase $15 billion in U.S. energy, $4.5 billion in agriculture products and 50 Boeing jets.

According to the White House, the United States and Indonesia seek to eliminate barriers for digital trade as part of their agreement. Indonesia is also committed to improving its labor standards by removing provisions that prevent workers and unions from collective bargaining.

The Philippines has followed suit with cutting tariffs on U.S. products, according to Trump. The United States and the Philippines reached an agreement last week.

The United States will lower its tariff on imports from the Philippines from 20% to 19%.

The United States and the Philippines traded about $23.5 billion in goods in 2024.

Kyiv, Ukraine – Heavy thuds that resemble fast hip-hop beats fill the night air when MIM-104 Patriots, air defence systems made in the United States, get to work.

Each Patriot surface-to-air launcher can shoot up to 32 missiles within seconds – and hit Russian ballistic missiles closing in on their targets.

The missiles fly at supersonic speeds, and the collision triggers a bright, split-second blast followed by a thunderous shock-wave.

“That’s the kind of explosion that makes me feel safe,” Ihor Lysenko, a 17-year-old in the capital Kyiv told Al Jazeera. He believes that the “technology is pretty reliable”.

The Patriots were developed in the 1970s to down Soviet missiles. Kyiv first received them in April 2023 from Washington and several of its Western European allies.

Within weeks, they had intercepted Russia’s Kinzhal (Dagger) intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are launched from fighter jets at more than 12km (7.5 miles) above the ground.

The Kinzhals mostly fly in the Earth’s stratosphere to maintain their speed, which, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin, is 10 times faster than the speed of sound, which he said makes any Western air defence system “useless”.

But in the past two years, about 10 Patriot systems in Ukraine – the exact number is a state secret – stationed in Kyiv and the southern port of Odesa have downed dozens more Kinzhals – along with other cruise and ballistic missiles, including North Korean ones; fighter jets; helicopters; and attack drones.

The latter is similar to hammering a nail with an electronic microscope – a Patriot missile is priced at several million dollars while Russian drones cost 100 times less.

The Patriots are, however, not 100 percent efficient.

During a late April attack on Kyiv, a Russian missile razed a two-storey apartment building, killing 12 people and wounding 87, gouging out windows and damaging roofs in dozens of buildings nearby.

On Sunday, US President Donald Trump announced that he would supply Kyiv with more Patriots – by selling them to Washington’s NATO allies who would pass them on to Ukraine.

“We will send them Patriots, which they desperately need,” Trump told reporters. “Putin really surprised a lot of people. He talks nice, and then he bombs everybody in the evening.”

On Monday, Trump specified the number of systems – 17 – during a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

“It’s everything. It’s Patriots. It’s all of them. It’s a full complement with the batteries,” Trump said.

He referred to an unnamed Western nation that had the “17 Patriots ready to be shipped”.

Days earlier, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Berlin was ready to acquire additional Patriot systems.

‘We need hundreds of interceptors’

The new Patriots that will be deployed to large Ukrainian cities will definitely lower the lethality of Russian air raids, but won’t cross any “red lines” for Putin, a Kyiv-based analyst said.

“Russia occasionally cried about red lines when it came to long-range weaponry for strikes on Russia,” Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Penta think tank, told Al Jazeera. “There are no red lines with Patriots.”

However, the new Patriots won’t solve Ukraine’s problems with Russian air raids.

“The problem is not just about the Patriots,” Fesenko said. “We don’t just need the Patriots to fight ballistic missiles. Now Russia’s main strike weapon is drones. They cause most of the damage.”

Most damage and deaths are caused by attack drones that fly in swarms of hundreds at heights of up to 5km (3 miles) and cannot be hit by Ukraine’s own air defence systems or mobile air defence teams armed with machineguns.

Ukraine needs up to 25 more Patriot systems to cover its key urban areas, according to Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of the Ukrainian military’s General Staff.

While the details about the new Patriots’ arrival are unknown, some observers said the purpose of Trump’s pledge is clear.

“He does that to support his image that has been tarnished domestically and internationally,” Romanenko told Al Jazeera.

And what Ukraine needs the most is drone interceptors that can fly up to 500 kilometres per hour (310 miles per hour) as Moscow equips new generations of its unmanned vehicles with jet engines, he said.

“The quantity is what matters. If they launch more than 700 [drones per attack], if they are capable of upping it to 1,000, then we need hundreds of interceptors,” Romanenko said.

Moscow scrupulously analyses the routes of its drone swarms and frequently changes them to avoid interception, so Kyiv needs light planes with electronic jamming, helicopters and air defence systems that can down aerodynamic targets, he said.

On Saturday, the Ukrainian air force said the newly supplied, German-made Skynex air defence system shot down six Russian-made Geran drones.

The Skynex has a 35mm automatic cannon that fires up to 1,000 rounds per minute and uses programmable ammunition that detonates near its targets, releasing a cloud of projectiles.

However, there are only two Skynex systems in Ukraine, and there are no details about further supplies.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence has been slow to develop drone interceptors so far, an expert said.

“Everything is on an amateur level,” Andrey Pronin, one of the pioneers of Ukrainian drone warfare who runs a school for drone pilots in Kyiv, told Al Jazeera.

He said he was part of a team that developed an interceptor drone capable of catching up to Russian loitering munitions.

But even though the interceptor was battle-tested, Ukraine’s Defence Ministry didn’t show any interest, he said.

“The ministry is such a hole. Things haven’t moved at all,” he said.