U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said trade talks with China are “a bit stalled,” and that a call between President Donald Trump and his counterpart Xi Jinping may be needed for the world’s two largest economies to reach a deal.
“I would say that they are a bit stalled,” Bessent said of the talks in an interview with Fox News Thursday.
Bessent, who traveled to Switzerland earlier this month for talks with Chinese officials that saw both sides retreat from tariffs over 100% on each other’s goods, said he believes more talks will happen with Chinese officials “in the next few weeks.” Still, Bessent said he sees the personal involvement of both country leaders as essential.
“I think that given the magnitude of the talks, given the complexity, that this is going to require both leaders to weigh in with each other,” Bessent said.
The last time the two presidents spoke was in January, days ahead of Trump’s inauguration. The U.S. president said he would speak to the Chinese leader “maybe at the end of the week” following the Geneva talks—which concluded in mid-May—though the call never materialized.
Bilateral tensions are instead on the rise again.
Trump’s administration announced it would start revoking some Chinese student visas, a move that Beijing has called “discriminatory.”
Washington has also introduced new restrictions on the sales of chip design software and reportedly some jet engine parts to China. That came shortly after it sought to block Huawei Technologies Co. from selling advanced AI chips anywhere in the world, prompting an angry rebuke from Beijing.
Bessent said in the interview that a couple of large trade deals are near. Among talks in more advanced stages, he plans to meet with a Japanese delegation Friday in Washington.
Those talks come amid a whiplash of court rulings centering on whether Trump is allowed to implement his signature “reciprocal” tariffs at all.
The U.S. Court of International Trade found earlier this week that the vast majority of the tariffs Trump has imposed since returning to the White House were illegal and ordered them reversed. An appellate court Thursday subsequently paused that ruling, allowing Trump’s tariff orders to remain in place for now as his administration appeals the adverse decision.
Bessent, a lead negotiator on trade deals for the U.S., said he hasn’t observed a change in posture from other countries involved in trade negotiations as a result of the rulings.
“We have not seen any of that in terms of our trading partners,” Bessent said. “They are coming to us in good faith and trying to complete the deals before the 90 day pause ends. We’ve seen no change in their attitude in the past 48 hours.”