On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Ingraham Angle,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said there will be meetings between American and Chinese officials on trade this weekend, and “on Saturday and Sunday, we will agree what we’re going to talk about. My sense is that this will be about de-escalation, not about the big trade deal” and de-escalation will have to come first.
Bessent said, “[W]e haven’t had negotiations. … The world has been coming to the U.S., and China has been the missing piece. I was going to be in Switzerland to negotiate with the Swiss. Turns out the Chinese team is traveling through Europe, and they will be in Switzerland, also. So, we will meet on Saturday and Sunday.”
He added, “I think that this is — what we’re going to do in Switzerland is we’ve agreed to talk, then on Saturday and Sunday, we will agree what we’re going to talk about. My sense is that this will be about de-escalation, not about the big trade deal and — but we’ve got to de-escalate before we can move forward.”
Bessent further stated that what the U.S. does is “up to the president. At the end of the day, the president has said that he’s happy just to give all countries a number if the negotiations don’t go well. And that’s what we’re doing with the other 17 important trading partners is, look, you can negotiate in good faith, you can come with your A game or President Trump is happy to ratchet the number back up to your April 2 number if you don’t want to decrease your tariffs, your non-tariff trade barriers, the currency manipulation, and subsidies of labor and industry.”
He further stated that Trump’s comments that he’s okay with no deal are “strategic uncertainty…and it can be unsettling for the market. But why are they unsettled? Because they have a lack of information. I have, President Trump has, asymmetric information for what he’s willing to do. We don’t disclose it.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
