Trump has now extended the deadline for negotiations to Aug. 1 and tinkered with his threatened tariffs, leaving the global trading system pretty much where it stood three months ago — in a state of limbo as businesses delay decisions on investments, contracts and hiring because they don’t know what the rules will be.

The United States will place a lower-than-promised 20% tariff on many Vietnamese exports, Donald Trump said on Wednesday, cooling tensions with its tenth-biggest trading partner days before the U.S. president could raise levies on most imports.