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Trump’s Trade Deals Come With Few Details to Flesh Out Big Numbers

(Bloomberg) -- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he’s not expecting the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates Wednesday, while calling on the central bank to be more open going forward in their approach toward policymaking.

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Bessent said at an event in Washington Wednesday that what he’d like to see from the Fed is “a little bit of imagination.” He said policymakers will prove to have been wrong in their expectation for President Donald Trump’s tariff hikes to push up US inflation.

The Treasury chief reiterated his observation that financial markets are pricing in rate cuts looking ahead.

He also urged observers not to “panic” if there’s no trade deal with some countries by the time of the Aug. 1 deadline Trump set for avoiding a bounce up in tariff rates to the “reciprocal” levels he unveiled on April 2. Negotiations can continue past the deadline, he said, adding that the escalation in tariff levels for affected trading partners would help to get their “attention.”

“I would expect that it’s going to be a busy August,” Bessent said at the event, which was hosted by Breitbart News.

Deals last week and over the weekend with Japan and the European Union helped to affect the tone of the latest round of talks with Chinese officials, Bessent said. The Treasury secretary led those negotiations in Stockholm, along with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

The Chinese delegation “were on their heels,” Bessent said. “The rest of the world is now with us.”

He reiterated his criticism of China’s economy, saying its unbalanced state — with a deep reliance on exports — is something unseen in economic history since the 1870s and 1880s, when Britain was at its peak in terms of manufacturing and export dominance.