Bessent Still Sees Xi-Trump Meeting, Says All Options Are Open
(Bloomberg) -- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he still expects Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping will meet, while warning that all options are open for retaliating against China’s move to tighten exports of rare earths.
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“He will be meeting with party chair Xi in Korea — I believe that meeting will still be on,” Bessent said on Fox Business Monday. He added that there had been “substantial communication” over the weekend, after Beijing had failed to respond to US inquiries, apparently referring to questions the administration had over China’s rare earths decision last week.
That decision, involving wide-ranging global export controls on products containing even traces of certain rare earths, prompted Trump to fire back on Friday, by threatening to cancel his planned meeting with Xi at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea late this month. The president also announced plans to put an additional 100% tariff on Chinese goods starting Nov. 1.
“This is China versus the world — they have pointed a bazooka at the supply chains and the industrial base of the entire free world, and we’re not going to have it,” Bessent told Fox Business.
The Treasury chief said that “we will not let these export restrictions and monitoring go on. And I believe that China is open to discussion on this.” The US will be meeting with its allies this week, and expects to get “substantial global support from from the Europeans, from from the Indians, from the democracies in Asia,” he said.
Bessent said that there would also be “staff-level meetings” with Chinese officials in Washington this week during the annual gathering of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
He added the he himself expects to meet with China’s vice premier “in Asia” before the Trump-Xi encounter. Bessent’s counterpart in multiple rounds of trade talks this year has been Vice Premier He Lifeng.
Asked about what the US might use as leverage to help force China to back down on its controls, Bessent said that “everything’s on the table,” while adding that he was “optimistic that this can be de-escalated.”
“But we’re willing to do whatever it takes and to adopt whatever posture it takes,” he said.
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