WASHINGTON

The US has brokered "potential" trade deals with Japan, South Korea, and India, President Donald Trump said Wednesday amid his ongoing global tariff war.

Trump maintained that he is in no hurry to finalize the agreements but acknowledged during a NewsNation television network town hall that "we have potential deals with them, yeah," after being asked about the agreements.

"I'm in less of a hurry than you are. We are sitting on the catbird seat," he said, using an idiom to refer to an enviable position. "They want us. We don't need them."

Host Bill O'Reilly emphasized that many across the US are nervous about the state of the economy amid fears that tariffs will sharply increase consumer prices and potentially plunge the nation into a recession, prompting Trump to say people can "wait two weeks."

The US Bureau of Economic Analysis reported earlier Wednesday that the American economy shrank 0.3% year-on-year in the first quarter.

It attributed the decrease primarily to "an increase in imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, and a decrease in government spending."