Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned countries not to realign with China on trade amid sweeping new United States tariffs while also urging them to pursue talks on trade with the U.S. rather than retaliation.
Bessent was asked about the response from countries to the recently imposed reciprocal tariffs at the American Banker’s Association’s Washington Summit Wednesday morning.
The Treasury secretary brought up comments from Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and the European Union aligning more closely with China on trade with the new U.S. tariffs. Bessent said it “would be cutting your own throat” for countries to align closely with China and warned that the Chinese would flood their markets for the worse.
“They just keep producing and producing and dumping and dumping, and it’s going somewhere,” Bessent said, while also saying he believes a deal can be worked on the new tariffs.
He also took aim at China for escalating the trade war after Beijing announced retaliatory 84% tariffs on the U.S. in response to the 104% tariff imposed on their imports to the U.S.
Bessent said he was ready to negotiate with countries on the tariffs, pointing to talks with Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam and saying he has “about 70 negotiations lined up.”
“So if you don’t retaliate, but if you don’t retaliate, that is the ceiling,” Bessent said, referring to the current tariff rates announced last Wednesday. “So we’ve been overwhelmed with the response to come to D.C. and negotiate.”
STOCK MARKET MIXED AT OPEN AFTER FULL TRUMP TARIFFS GO INTO EFFECT
Trump himself has also called for calm despite the higher tariff rates going into effect at midnight, including the 104% rate on Chinese imports. He posted on Truth Social Wednesday that “everything is going to work out well.”
“BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!” Trump posted.
