Glitch in the Chinese system: Treasury Secy Scott Bessent drops surprising remark over ‘possible' Xi-Trump talk
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently appeared on a CBS interview on June 1, which started off with his take on the recent US-China trade scenario. The "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" show saw Bessent claim that President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will have a conversation soon amid the tariff standoff.
Bessent claimed that he is "confident" that the details of a US-China trade agreement "will be ironed out" when they converse.
During the show, Bessent stated that China is withholding its manufactured products from the rest of the world, which is otherwise necessary for the industrial supply chains of India, Europe, and other regions. This, according to him, is not what a reliable partner does.
He also highlighted China's activities during COVID, saying, 'I think that what Secretary Hegseth did was remind everyone that during COVID, China was an unreliable partner, and what we are trying to do is to de-risk. We do not want to decouple, but we do need to de-risk, as we saw during COVID, whether it was with semiconductors, medicines, the other products we are in the process of de-risking.'
Regarding the 'possible' talk between China and US, Bessent was quoted as saying, "Well, we will see what the consequences are. I am confident that when President Trump and Party Chairman Xi have a call, this will be ironed out. So- but the fact that they are withholding some of the products that they agreed to release during our agreement- maybe it's a glitch in the Chinese system, maybe it's intentional. We'll see after the President speaks with the Party chairman."
When asked by show host Margaret Brennan about the fact that President Trump has said a few times that he was going to speak to President Xi, but no such conversation has happened so far, Bennett responded, saying, 'I believe we'll see something very soon, Margaret.'
"I just got back from China last week. They're not scared, folks. This notion they're gonna come bow to America. I wouldn't count on that. And when they have a problem, they put 100,000 engineers on it, and they've been preparing for this for years," Bennett also said when asked further on Beijing.
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