US President Donald Trump’s administration vowed on Wednesday to work with its allies and other countries to get an upper hand in its trade talks with China, claiming Beijing’s recent rare earth control as a sign of being an “unreliable partner” that threatens global supply chains.
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The remarks marked the latest in a series of threatened countermeasures, as Trump officials have previously announced 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese goods from November 1 and also struck back on such targets like cooking oil suggested by Trump a day earlier.
“China’s actions have once again demonstrated the risk of being dependent on them, on rare earth,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said at a press conference in Washington on Wednesday.
“This is China versus the world,” he said. “If China wants to be an unreliable partner to the world, then the world will have to decouple.”
He added: “We should work together to de-risk and diversify our supply chains, away from China, as quickly as possible.”
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Bessent’s comments came at a time when Beijing and Washington showed their muscle ahead of a possible meeting between the US leader and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit starting at the end of October.