US ‘made trade deals' with Thailand, Cambodia, Lutnick says
United States has made trade deals with Cambodia and Thailand ahead of President
Donald Trump 's August 1 tariff deadline, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Wednesday.
Lutnick, who made the comments during an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, provided no further details.
'It's unbelievable. And because he [Trump] uses trade, he gets to invite me on the phone, and I listened all day Saturday while he's calling Cambodia, Thailand,' he said.
'And what happens on Monday? They announce a truce. And here we did today. We made trade deals with
Cambodia and
Thailand .'
On Monday, Thailand and Cambodia agreed to a truce after five days of clashes that killed at least 43 people on both sides, as a long-standing dispute over contested border temples boiled over into fighting on their 800km (500-mile) boundary.
'Numerous people were killed and I was dealing with two countries that we get along with very well, very different countries from certain standpoints. They've been fighting for 500 years intermittently. And, we solved that war … we solved it through trade,' Trump told reporters on Monday.
That ceasefire is still holding despite both countries accusing each other of breaching the deal on Wednesday.
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