Members of Donald Trump’s cabinet offered conflicting messages on Sunday regarding the existence of ongoing tariff negotiations with China, despite the Republican president’s assertions to the contrary.
The Trump administration had signaled its openness last week to de-escalating the trade war between the world’s two largest economies, a conflict that has fueled fears of a potential recession. Trump claimed that tariff discussions with China were underway and that he had engaged in direct communication with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
However, Beijing has refuted these claims, denying that any trade talks are currently taking place.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a key figure in US trade negotiations with numerous countries, stated on Sunday that while he had interacted with his Chinese counterparts during the International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington the previous week, they did not discuss the tariff dispute.
In a separate television interview, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins asserted that the United States was engaged in daily conversations with China regarding tariffs.
“Every day we are in conversation with China, along with those other 99, 100 countries that have come to the table,” Rollins said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
When questioned on ABC’s “This Week” about whether the United States and China were conducting tariff negotiations, Bessent refrained from providing a direct answer.
“I had interaction with my Chinese counterpart, but it was more on the traditional things like financial stability, global economic early warnings. I don’t know if President Trump has spoken with President Xi (Jinping),” he stated.
Bessent, who had previously characterized tariff negotiations with Beijing as a “slog,” did not offer a timeline for any potential agreement with China.
He indicated that while a comprehensive trade deal could take months to materialize, a de-escalation of tensions and an agreement in principle could be achieved sooner, which would prevent tariffs from escalating to their maximum levels.
Trump’s unpredictable and often confusing implementation of tariffs has impacted numerous countries, including major US trading partners such as Canada, Mexico, and China. This has resulted in unprecedented market volatility and significantly eroded investor confidence in US assets.
