Trump Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issues cryptic hypersonic missile warning to China

Daily Mail​

a day ago

President Donald Trump's trade guru brought up China's fearsome hypersonic missiles during tense trade talks – but in a surprising way that eased, rather than blew up, negotiations.
It was a fraught topic to broach – given the strong feelings in the military establishment about advances in China's development of the state-of-the-art weapons, which can fly at more than five times the speed of sound and make course corrections in flight.
That makes them a rising threat to U.S. naval superiority through its ability to project force through its fleet of powerful aircraft carriers and battleships.
It was Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who recently butted heads with Elon Musk, who took the novel approach, according to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, a fellow negotiator.
Rather than provoke the Chinese negotiators, the comment broke the ice, said Lutnick.
The moment came in the midst of two-day trade talks in London, where China was once again pressing for access for the most advanced U.S. microchip technology. The U.S. has resisted, fearful of watching China once again use technology developed in the U.S. to arm and leapfrog in the marketplace.
'The Chinese side always wants to remove our export controls. You know, they're always trying to remove our export controls,' Lutnick told CNBC hours after Trump announced the deal 'done.'
'And Scott Bessent gave one of my favorite lines of the whole negotiation. He said, really, no. So you want no export controls? Fine. I'd like to take home a couple of your best hypersonic missiles, please. Can I have them?' as Lutnick described it.
The offer 'obviously' did not lead to such an exchange, he said.
'So it was just disarming. So the way to do it correctly was to – we were deeply respectful. There was no yelling or screaming, none of that stuff. We were just deeply respectful. Let's get down to it. Our leaders want this to be positive. They want this to go well, let's make sure we get it done,' he said.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned in November, before assuming his post, that China 'can take out 10 aircraft carriers in the first 20 minutes of the conflict' – in effect destroying the entire fleet. 'China is building an army specifically designed to destroy the US,' he said in an interview.
China's Defense Ministry hit back, with ministry spokesman Senior Col. Zhang Xiaogang saying, 'We hope the U.S. side will break away from persecution mania and stop using others as excuses.'
Lutnick gushed about the results, while also admitting the talks codified earlier agreements reached weeks ago in Geneva.
'This feels really good. I felt really good leaving last night,' he said.
'This cleans up the Geneva deal that we had set. He said the deal vastly streamlines approvals for licenses for the U.S. to get access to China's rare earth minerals.
'We changed the model that if an American company applies, they will approve it right away, right away,' he said.
President Donald Trump declared a trade deal between the U.S. and China 'done' and announced new rare earth minerals he said would be coming into the U.S. from its top trade competitor.
'Our deal with China is done, subject to final approval with President Xi and me,' Trump posted Wednesday morning. 'Full magnets, and any necessary rare earths, will be supplied, up front, by China.'
He also said Chinese students would continue 'using our colleges and universities,' something he said has 'always been good with me' despite his administration's crackdown on foreign students at top universities.
The president said the U.S. is 'getting a total of 55 percent tariffs from China,' without further explanation, and that the U.S. would face a 10 percent tariff from Beijing.
That keeps in place tariffs between the two countries that are at historically high levels, an indication that the matter is still not settled.
Trump's morning post came before markets opened in New York, and followed trade negotiators announcing they had agreed on a framework following multi-day talks in London.
The initial trading response was muted, on a day when new inflation data came in lower than expected. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had ticked up by less than a quarter of a percent, while the broader S&P was up about a tenth of a percent. The markets have already been on a tear, with the S&P rising for six out of the last seven trading days.
'First we had to get sort of the negativity out and now we can go forward,' Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters.
Trump even declared: 'relationship is excellent!' That comes despite years of reports of Chinese hacking and corporate espionage activities in the U.S., along with moves to supplant U.S. influence around the globe and partnering with Russia shortly before Moscow invaded Ukraine.
The 55 percent U.S. tariff incorporates the 10 percent baseline tariff Trump imposed on imports from around the world. It also adds in 25 percent tariffs on China from his first term and another 20 percent he slapped on this year after accusing China of flooding the U.S. with deadly fentanyl.
The U.S. and China clashed in a trade war in Trump's first term. Tensions rose again when a Chinese spy balloon traversed North America. After months of strain President Joe Biden sat down with Xi Jinping in Woodside, California in 2024 in an effort to get relations on a more stable path.
Negotiators for the two countries met in Geneva in May to negotiate a pause in new tariffs Trump had imposed, prompting retaliation from Beijing and rattling markets.
The prospect of new trade structure for the world's top two economic powers was expected to send markets soaring, although Wall Street traders have been honing their ways to gauge responses to Trump's topsy-turvy pronouncements on trade and tariffs.
Weeks ago Trump exploded at a reporter who asked him about the 'TACO trade,' which stands for 'Trump Always Chickens Out.'
In the case of what he announced on China, it appears Trump secured access for rare earth minerals he prizes – although some have been identified as being extracted through forced labor of oppressed minorities in China's far-western Xinjiang province.
Titanium, lithium – which is critical to batteries – beryllium, and magnesium are among the products considered vital to manufacturing and products.
Trump's announcement came on a day when the government announced the Consumer Price Index rose 2.4 percent in May, following a 2.3 percent increase in April.
The numbers reflected the inflationary impact of Trump's tariffs, which are a tax on imports, but analysts aren't seeing the signs of runaway inflation that could rock the markets. So-called 'core' inflation, which excludes volatile commodities, was at 2.8 percent.
Trump's post that he was 'always good' with Chinese students clashes with a crackdown in his administration.
Under a policy announced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the administration announced an 'aggressive' move against Chinese students, 'including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields.'
'We will also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People's Republic of China and Hong Kong,' Rubio said.
Educational ties between the two countries date to the reopening of China and President Jimmy Carter's invitation to thousands of them to study here. U.S. colleges and universities, meanwhile, have become increasingly reliant on the higher tuition rates paid by foreign students to balance the books.
Four international students from the University of Iowa are suing the feds over the policy.