Treasury Secretary Scott Bescent expressed confidence on Tuesday that a trade deal with China is approaching.
With so-called mutual tariffs set to take effect in November, Bessent said in an interview with CNBC that he expects further consultations will occur earlier.
“We’ll see each other again,” he said during the extensive exchange at “Squawk Box.” Each of these lectures is becoming increasingly productive. I think the Chinese now feel that trade contracts are possible. ”
The statement comes in a series of twists and turns talks since Trump announced his first “liberation day” obligations at the US Global Trade Partner on April 2.
Under the first move, China would have faced tariffs of up to 145%, but they were suspended as consultations continued. The first suspension of mutual tariffs was to expire on August 12th, but Trump extended the suspension until November 10th.
Bescent said his US trading partners had been told “Chinese products are overflowing with the market and don’t know what to do about it. They’re slightly ignoring the fact that these products are in it.”
The US had a trade deficit of nearly $300 billion with China in 2024. This was a sharp decline in 2025, at $128 billion until July.
Bessent noted that US trade representative Jamieson Greer expects the deficit to “becomes even narrower by at least 30% this year, perhaps even narrower in 2026.”
“So the idea here is to balance it out and do fair deals,” he said.
