Bessent says US to prod China to pause Russia, Iran oil purchases
Bessent said in a Fox Business interview that he believes the United States can move on to such issues concerning China, given that trade is now "in a good place."
He made the remarks as senior U.S. and Chinese officials are set to meet Monday and Tuesday in Stockholm for a third round of trade talks, following President Donald Trump's launch of a trade war against Beijing since his return to the White House in January.
"I think that the Russian war machine would grind to a halt. Iran negotiations would be much easier" if China paused its buying of oil from the two countries for "three or six months," Bessent said.
Trump said last week he is ready to hit Russia with "severe" tariffs that could be set at 100 percent if there is no deal to end its war in Ukraine within 50 days. He also said secondary tariffs would apply to countries buying Russian goods.
China is Russia's leading trade partner. While Western countries have imposed a series of sanctions on Moscow, China has continued to purchase Russian oil.
In addition to making little progress in persuading Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war, the Trump administration is also finding it difficult to deal with Iran, which has shown no signs of abandoning its nuclear program despite damage caused to its facilities by U.S. airstrikes about a month ago.
Bessent also said in the interview that his team wants to address the issue of "China needing to rebalance."
China is "the most imbalanced, unbalanced economy in the history of the world," Bessent said, noting that the country now accounts for 30 percent of global manufacturing.
"That's unsustainable. They have a real estate downturn. Many would call it a crisis. Manufacturing has slumped and they can't export their economic problems to the rest of the world," he said. "They need to solve them. One of the ways to solve them is to create a consumer economy."
Earlier this week, he suggested that a 90-day tariff truce with China, set to expire on Aug. 12, could be extended as negotiations have reached a "new level."
In May, the United States and China backed away from their respective triple-digit tariff rates imposed during the trade war. Since then, a 90-day truce in the tit-for-tat tariffs, which both sides agreed in Geneva during high-level talks, has been in place.
Following the deal, Bessent and other senior U.S. officials held a second round of talks with their Chinese counterparts in London.
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