US, China trade row could ease after Trump-Xi talks: Treasury chief

WASHINGTON: US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that President Donald Trump could speak with China’s Xi Jinping “very soon,” and that such a call could help break the logjam in the trade talks between the world’s two biggest economies.

Trump on Friday accused Beijing of violating a deal reached last month in Geneva – negotiated by Bessent – to temporarily lower staggeringly high tariffs they had imposed on each other, in a pause to last 90 days.

China’s slow-walking on export license approvals for rare earths and other elements needed to make cars and chips have fueled US frustration, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday – a concern since confirmed by US officials.

But Bessent seemed to take the pressure down a notch, telling CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the gaps could be bridged.

Trump signals fresh trade tensions with China

“I’m confident that when President Trump and Party Chairman Xi have a call that this will be ironed out,” Bessent said, however noting that China was “withholding some of the products that they agreed to release during our agreement.”

When asked if rare earths were one of those products, Bessent said, “Yes.”

“Maybe it’s a glitch in the Chinese system. Maybe it’s intentional. We’ll see after the president speaks with” Xi, he said.

On when a Trump-Xi call could take place, Bessent said: “I believe we will see something very soon.”

Since Trump returned to the presidency, he has slapped sweeping tariffs on most US trading partners, with especially high rates on Chinese imports.

New tit-for-tat levies on both sides reached three digits before the de-escalation this month, where Washington agreed to temporarily reduce additional tariffs on Chinese imports from 145 percent to 30 percent.

China, meanwhile, lowered its added duties from 125 percent to 10 percent.

In an interview with ABC’s “This Week,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said China was “slow-rolling the deal,” adding: “We are taking certain actions to show them what it feels like on the other side of that equation.”

“Our president understands what to do. He’s going to go work it out,” Lutnick said.