Treasury's Bessent to testify amid China trade deal: What to know
Ahead of Bessent's testimony, Yahoo Finance senior Washington reporter Jennifer Schonberger outlines the details of the proposed trade agreement and Bessent's comments about the trade talks.
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The US and Chinese officials reached an agreement during a London meeting this week. President Trump cheering the deal on so Truth Social this morning outlining some of the details and hailing the relationship between the two countries as excellent. Here are the details. Our very own Fed correspondent, Jennifer Schonberger. Hey, Jennifer.
Good morning, Maddie. Treasury Secretary Scott Benson set to testify this morning here on Capitol Hill just hours after wrapping up two days of trade negotiations with China. Benson along with Commerce Secretary Howard Letnick and US Trade Representative Jameson Greer were able to restore the trade pact that was struck in Geneva just last month. But there are still question marks about what is exactly contained within this framework. President Trump posted on Truth Social about an hour ago that it looks like tariffs are actually going to rise to 55% on China from 30%, while China will have a 10% tariff on the US. He said we will provide to China what was agreed to, including Chinese students using our colleges and universities, which has always been good with me. He said the relationship is quote, excellent. Now, apparently or reportedly, the Chinese drove a bit of a hard bargain, asking whether the US would lift export controls on certain US technologies to China in return for lifting export controls on those rare earth minerals, that roadblock that had emerged in talks that inspired the second set of conversations. Uh, President Trump implying that that will likely go forward. Uh, Commerce Secretary Letnick saying Tuesday evening that once the Chinese begin exporting those critical rare earth minerals that the US will lift export controls on some US technologies.
Uh, President Trump saying though that he still needs to approve this deal and Chinese President Xi Jinping also needs to sign off on this deal. So still a lot of question marks remaining here. Now, Secretary Benson set to testify before the House Ways and Means Committee at 10:00 a.m. this morning where hopefully we will get some more details on this deal. And guys, separately last night we learned that a US appeals court ended up extending a stay that had put been put in place reversing the US International Trade Court's ruling that had rendered the president's tariffs under IEEPA, that International Economic Emergency Powers Act. Uh, so those those reciprocal tariffs still remain in place, although they have been paused for 90 days. A hearing has been set for July 31st. Back to you.
Jennifer, thank you.
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