Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer met on Wednesday morning with the hope of easing concerns about President Donald Trump’s trade war with China.
Trump and Beijing have exchanged trade salvos over the past week, spurred first by China’s decision to end purchases of American soybeans and roll out new export controls for rare earth minerals. Trump responded in kind on Friday by vowing to implement a 100% tariff increase on all Chinese imports to the United States.
Bessent and Greer backed the president’s position with something of a “good cop, bad cop” routine at a Wednesday morning press conference at the Department of the Treasury, with Greer hammering China’s “global supply chain power grab.”
“This move is not proportional retaliation. It is an exercise in economic coercion of every country in the world,” he said of China’s new proposed export controls. “This rule gives China control over basically the entire global economy and the technology supply chain.”
On the other hand, Bessent, who has steadily grown into his role as Trump’s market whisperer over the past nine months, took a slightly more tempered tone.
“As the president said, we want to help China, not hurt it,” the treasury secretary added before slightly turning up the heat. “We are not going to let a group of bureaucrats in Beijing try to manage the global supply chain.”
He continued, “I am optimistic that this can be de-escalated. Ultimately, we are confident in the strong relationship between President Trump and [Chinese President Xi Jinping].
“We’ve had substantial communication with the Chinese over the past few days, and we believe that there will be more forthcoming this week,” Bessent concluded.
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Earlier in the day, Bessent spoke at CNBC’s Invest in America Forum, where he sought to put some daylight between Xi and his top trade negotiator, Minister of Commerce Li Chenggang, suggesting that the latter was “unhinged” in his recent escalations of the trade war, while claiming that other leaders in Beijing do not hold the same positions.
“This individual was very disrespectful. He showed up, uninvited, in Washington and said, quote, ‘China will cause global chaos,’” Bessent added of Li during his Wednesday press conference. “I don’t believe that China wants to be an agent of chaos. They used to have the ‘wolf-warrior’ diplomats. So, maybe he thinks he’s a wolf-warrior.”