US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent on Monday said it is China’s responsibility to reduce tensions in the ongoing trade dispute, citing the trade imbalance between the two nations.
“I believe that it’s up to China to de-escalate, because they sell five times more to us than we sell to them, and so these 120%, 145% tariffs are unsustainable,” Bessent said in an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box.
His comments come as financial markets remain jittery following President Donald Trump’s April 2 announcement of broad-based global tariffs.
A week later, Trump said a 10% across-the-board tariff would remain in place, while tougher levies targeting specific countries would be delayed for 90 days.
Despite the uncertainty, Bessent said progress is being made.
“We’ve had many countries come forward and present some very good proposals, and we’re evaluating those.
“I would guess that India would be one of the first trade deals we would sign. So watch this space,” he added, pointing to India as a likely early agreement among 15 to 18 key trading relationships under negotiation,” he said.
Bessent also said that European nations are likely feeling pressure over the euro’s recent strength against the dollar.
“You’re going to see the [European Central Bank] start cutting rates to try to get the euro back down. Europeans don’t want a strong euro. We have a strong-dollar policy,” he said.
The euro has risen nearly 10% against the dollar this year, after the two currencies were nearly equal in value in early January.
Conflicting messages have emerged from the administration regarding the state of talks with China.
Trump recently said discussions were happening during a visit by Chinese officials to Washington. But reports indicated that the officials were there for World Bank and IMF meetings, not formal trade talks.
Bessent emphasised that official talks would not happen through the media.
“The White House will not be conducting negotiations in the press,” he said.
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