Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Asked: Are You Talking To China ‘Specifically About Tariffs, Or Not’?

During Tuesday's White House press briefing, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was asked about US-China trade negotiation meetings.

Transcript

00:00The Press.

00:01The Press.

00:02Thank you so much, Caroline.

00:03Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

00:04The Chinese continue to say that the U.S. and Chinese

00:07are not engaged in any consultation or negotiation on tariffs.

00:11You recently said you've talked to your counterpart,

00:14but more about, quote, traditional things,

00:16like financial stability.

00:17So can you clarify, is the administration talking to Beijing

00:21specifically about tariffs or not?

00:24Well, we're not going to talk about who's talking to whom,

00:26but I think that, you know, over time,

00:29we will see that the Chinese tariffs are unsustainable for China.

00:34I've seen some very large numbers over the past few days

00:39that show if these numbers stay on,

00:41Chinese could lose 10 million jobs very quickly,

00:44and even if there is a drop in the tariffs,

00:47that they could lose 5 million jobs.

00:50So remember that we are the deficit country.

00:54They sell almost five times more goods to us

00:57than we sell to them.

00:59So the onus will be on them to take off these tariffs.

01:05They're unsustainable for them.

01:07And they are saying you guys are not talking about it.

01:09So is that true?

01:10Look, they have a different form of government they're playing

01:14to a different audience.

01:16So I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty, again,

01:20of who's talking to whom.

01:22But as I said, I believe for the Chinese,

01:26these tariffs are unsustainable.

01:28And very quickly, two days ago, you said you didn't know

01:31if President Trump had spoken to Xi Jinping.

01:33Do you know now?

01:34Again, I would say Caroline and I have a lot of jobs

01:37around the White House running the switchboard in one of them.

01:40Bluebird, go ahead.

01:41Bluebird, go ahead.