Nominee for US treasury secretary suggests possible restart of trade talks with China

During his Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday, Scott Bessent, Donald Trump’s choice for US treasury secretary, signalled a willingness to resume trade negotiations with China and defended the president-elect’s tariff policy as a useful tool to gain leverage.

Bessent said that he would push China to buy American goods, indicating openness to a trade agreement like the “phase one” deal that the US and China reached in Trump’s first term.

He also said the US must ensure that the dollar remains “the world’s reserve currency”, while advocating for “rigorous screening” of outbound hi-tech investments and measures to secure supply chains to ensure an edge in America’s competition with China.

“As a skilled negotiator, [Trump] believes that we’ve probably gotten over our skis on sanctions, and that sanctions may be driving countries out of the use of the US dollar. So the tariffs can be used for negotiations,” Bessent told the Senate Finance Committee.

Trump, who is to be sworn in on Monday, has long contended that tariffs can bring manufacturing and jobs back to America and help cut the federal deficit. During his election campaign, he advocated using tariff revenues to replace income taxes.

In 2018, Trump began imposing tariffs on more than US$300 billion worth of imported Chinese goods and pushed Beijing to sign an agreement, known as the phase-one deal, requiring it to buy an additional US$200 billion of American goods and services in a two-year period.