The White House is expected to unveil details about what negotiations with the likes of India and South Korea have produced as it tries to de-escalate President Donald Trump’s trade war. But any “deals” it announces aren’t likely to remove the worry over tariffs that has shaken financial markets.

On Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on CNBC that many Asian countries have presented good proposals that would lower both tariff and nontariff trade barriers, and that one of the first announcements could be with India. The U.S. could unveil an “understanding” with South Korea in coming days, he said earlier.  

Analysts say investors should keep their expectations in check. So-called sectoral tariffs remain a risk, and any announcements in coming days or weeks won’t be typical trade deals, which take years to negotiate. Even the Phase One trade deal struck with China in Trump’s first term, meant to provide a reprieve after a bruising period of tit for tat on trade, took more than a year.

Instead, most geopolitical consultants and market strategists expect bilateral memorandums of understanding. Those could allow the U.S. to extend its 90-day pause on the country-specific tariffs it announced April 2, without actually issuing another pause. It could even take those levies off the table entirely and declare some wins if countries come back with their own concessions.

“A lot of what is happening is purchasing countries can do in the short-term to get out of the penalty box, not serious long-term sustainable changes in policies,” says Myron Brilliant, senior counselor at DBG-Albright Stonebridge Group.

The U.S. has been talking with Indian officials for weeks. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was one of the first to meet with President Donald Trump after he took office. India, which is less reliant on exports than its Asian neighbors, pre-emptively exempted some U.S. capital goods from tariffs and has broadcast other proposals. Still, analysts expect little more than a framework for continued talks.

And while the Treasury Department noted South Korea’s efforts to reduce trade barriers and invest more in the U.S. in a readout of talks with more than a dozen countries late Friday, the government in Seoul may have trouble acting decisively. South Korea is embroiled in political turmoil following the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol, possibly complicating the signing of a meaningful trade pact.

In a note to clients, Veda Partners’ Henrietta Treyz said South Korea could offer purchases of U.S. liquefied natural gas and use its leverage as the world’s second-largest shipbuilder after China to reach some sort of deal. That could mean partnering to build ships or helping train U.S. workers as the U.S. tries to revitalize its own shipbuilding capabilities. That sort of agreement could keep the 25% tariffs the U.S. announced on April 2 at bay beyond the pause Trump unveiled April 9.

These bilateral announcements could give a market craving for some good news a reprieve, especially if it provides some indication of what the ceiling is on tariffs. “We are looking for data points in the next weeks that tariff agreements will become more nuanced, such as differentiated by products and countries,” said Ulrike Hoffmann-Burchardi, UBS Global Wealth Management’s chief investment officer for global equities, in a note to clients.

“This shift toward a selective-tariff regime could result in a smaller slowdown in global growth, and lead to a narrower gap in the relative growth impact between the U.S. and the rest of the world.”

But political strategists note that this won’t be the end of tariff risks. The administration is in the midst of investigations into semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, lumber, copper, critical minerals, and shipbuilding that are likely to result in sectoral tariffs. That process could mean that even goods that have been exempted so far—consumer electronics from China, for example—could be at risk.

Another possibility is that the U.S. imposes 25% tariffs on hundreds of auto parts, ranging from engines to tires, on May 3, on top of the 25% auto tariff Trump unveiled this month. That would mean 50% tariffs on $460 billion of auto components. One possibility, Treyz says, is that the White House lifts the 25% steel and aluminum tariffs to mitigate the hit of the 25% tariff on components.

“A lot of [these initial deals] are messaging to the market to show progress and give something Trump can claim as a win to excite the market, even if there aren’t enough changes to the trade barriers,” says Owen Tedford, a senior research analyst at Beacon Policy Advisors. “It’s a bit of a head fake.”

There is also the elephant in the room: the status of U.S.-China tariffs. While most strategists expect the current 145% tariff on China that makes trade prohibitive to come down, possibly to 50% to 65% for starters, any such move needs talks.

And yet it isn’t clear that talks on trade have started. Trump has said negotiations are happening, but China has denied that. In Monday’s CNBC interview, Bessent said it was up to China to de-escalate the trade tensions.

But analysts say China’s approach is for lower-level negotiations that would lay the groundwork for talks between Trump and China’s Xi Jinping. There isn’t a clear channel to start those, nor a good understanding in Beijing of what the Trump team hopes to achieve via the negotiations. As a result, many analysts say, China is paying close attention to developments in talks between the U.S. and Japan.

Patience was the buzzword that Charles Kupchan, a former National Security Council and State Department official who now teaches international affairs at Georgetown, heard on a call with Chinese scholars. “Authorities in Beijing don’t know what to make of what is happening so they are keeping the powder dry and waiting for the dust to settle and a framework to figure out where they play into Trump’s grand strategy,” he said.

Economists based in China told Barron’s that they see China prepping to take some near-term pain. They say officials are holding off for now on aggressive efforts to boost the economy until they get a better grasp of the outlook for tariffs. That includes not only those that are in effect now, but also the sectoral tariffs they think could remain for longer, even if the U.S. some deal emerges between the U.S.-China.