Trump Hasn’t Offered Unilateral Tariff Cuts on China
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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that President Donald Trump hasn’t offered to take down U.S. tariffs on China on a unilateral basis.
Asked if there was no unilateral offer from the president to de-escalate, Bessent said “not at all.” He was answering reporters’ questions April 23 after a keynote speech at an Institute of International Finance event in Washington. “As I’ve said many times, I don’t think either side believes that the current tariff levels are sustainable, so I would not be surprised if they went down in a mutual way.”
Trump on April 22 said that U.S. tariffs “will come down substantially but it won’t be zero,” and that he didn’t see the need to “play hardball” with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Bessent said that the Trump administration is looking at multiple factors regarding China beyond just tariffs — including non-tariff barriers and government subsidies. He also said that the strongest relationship between Washington and Beijing is at the top, and that there was no timeframe for engagement. He said that a full rebalancing of trade might take two to three years.
Trump said separately on April 23 that the U.S. is going to have a fair deal with China.
The Treasury chief also said that the U.S. and India are “very close” on a trade agreement. He reiterated that a satisfactory arrangement doesn’t mean an actual trade document — signaling, as he has before, that initial deals with trading partners will be a broad framework rather than a detailed trade agreement.
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