On Fox News (of course) Trump's Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent couldn't name one trade deal he has completed.

Bill Hemmer pressed him on the issue.

Trump has threatened to put humongous tariffs on the EU.

The Fox News host did his best to give Bessent an out, but Bessent couldn't name one trade deal that's even close to an agreement. By the way, these trade “deals” Bessent has promised are ridiculous, because all they will do is get Demented Donald to stuff his tariffs so the global economies can get back to doing real business.

“Trading partners” does not equal a deal.

HEMMER: On the tariffs that you mentioned. You had a lot of discussions in Canada. Japan was a part of that. You've talked about Japan a lot. If the Japanese is not the next country to do a deal, who is?

BESSENT: As I mentioned before, we're far along with India. And they got in early on. Many of the Asian countries have come with very good deals.

So there are 18 important trading partners. And I would say, with the exception of the EU, most are negotiating in very good faith.

HEMMER: Who do you think goes first?

BESSENT: Bill, we're going to have to see.

HEMMER: Is it a summer battle? Do we take this into the fall? And if we take it into the fall, are we talking about 2026? To do a deal that you can announce publicly?
With the EU, with anybody.

You pick it.

HEMMER: No, look, these deals are moving quickly. And I think as we approach the end of the 90-day period, we're going to see more and more of them announced.

HEMMER: OK, is that July then?

HEMMER:I think that's the 90 days.

HEMMER:OK, so we will look for that then.

When 90 days comes, they will say they are “very close” and may need another 90 days.

***For fun, my friends at Raw Story used the Schrödinger’s cat analogy, to make fun of Bessent, but it's wrong in this instance. Schrödinger wasn't thrilled with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, so he came up with the cat. He didn't like our feline friends at all.

Until observed, Schrödinger’s cat is both alive and dead, it exists in a “superposition.” But Trump and Bessent know precisely where they are in trade negotiations, which is a big zero. Therefore the trade deals are dead. There is no either/or superposition.

In physics, scientists can't lie about their equations, because they would be found out and excommunicated from the profession.

The Trump administration lies constantly.

Too bad we can't be done with the lot of them.

UMich Economics professor and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute Justin Wolfers came up with the same number. Zero.