Washington — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that he’s “confident” a U.S.-China trade dispute “will be ironed out” when President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping have a conversation, after Mr. Trump said China was violating its trade agreement with the U.S. late last week.
Of a call between the two leaders, “I believe we’ll see something very soon,” Bessent said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
Mr. Trump said in April that he spoke to his Chinese counterpart about tariffs, but Beijing denied that a direct conversation took place. Mr. Trump has vowed since he took office in January to speak with Xi, but no formal plans have been announced.
Weeks after the U.S. and China agreed to a temporary easing of tariffs imposed on imports earlier in the year, Mr. Trump said Friday that China was violating the trade agreement, though he didn’t outline the alleged violations.
“I made a FAST DEAL with China in order to save them from what I thought was going to be a very bad situation, and I didn’t want to see that happen. Because of this deal, everything quickly stabilized and China got back to business as usual,” Mr. Trump said in a post on Truth Social Friday, before adding that “China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US. So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!”
Last month, the U.S. and China committed to a 90-day suspension of most of the levies that had been imposed since early April, reducing the U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods from 145% to about 30%, while China reduced its levies on American imports to 10%.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller outlined to reporters Friday that China had “abrogated the agreement.”
“China did not fulfill the obligations that it made and committed to with the United States. And so that opens up all manner of action for the United States to ensure future compliance,” Miller said. “It remains the President’s hope and desire that China will choose the path of cooperation, of common ground, and that we can open up China to American business just in the same way that America, of course, that we all know has been open to Chinese business for a very long time now.”
Miller said the U.S. wants to see China comply with the agreement and fulfill its obligations “as soon as possible” to ensure a “cooperative” and “constructive” relationship that he said the president wants.
On Sunday, Bessent acknowledged that the products China is withholding include critical minerals, which are materials used in high-tech products such as computer chips and electric vehicle batteries. The export of rare earths was thought to be at the center of the disagreement.
“The fact that they are withholding some of the products that they agreed to release during our agreement — maybe it’s a glitch in the Chinese system, maybe it’s intentional,” Bessent said. “We’ll see after the president speaks with party chairman.”
The trade dispute comes amid other developments between the U.S. and China. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth outlined in recent days a developing military threat from China to Taiwan. And Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration would work to “aggressively revoke” the visas of some Chinese international students. Asked whether the administration was intentionally escalating a standoff with Beijing, Bessent said “I don’t think it’s intentional.”
“I think that what Secretary Hegseth did was remind everyone that during COVID, China was an unreliable partner, and what we are trying to do is to de-risk,” Bessent said, while adding that the U.S. doesn’t want to “decouple.”
Bessent said “what China is doing is they are holding back products that are essential for the industrial supply chains of India, of Europe.”
“That is not what a reliable partner does,” he added.
