U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Friday he believes Washington has the makings of a deal with China, and he is “optimistic” about the path ahead.
“This week’s negotiations in Stockholm have advanced our talks with China, and I believe that we have the makings of a deal that will benefit both of our great nations,” Bessent said in a post on X that was subsequently deleted.
“I am optimistic about the path forward,” he added.
A Treasury Department spokesperson said the post was being reposted because the images attached to it had not uploaded correctly. The spokesperson also noted that the language in the post was in line with what Bessent had said in various media interviews this week.
In an interview with CNBC on Thursday, Bessent said the United States believes it has the makings of a trade deal with China, but it is “not 100% done.”
U.S. negotiators “pushed back quite a bit” over two days of trade talks with the Chinese in Stockholm this week, Bessent told CNBC.
China is facing an August 12 deadline to reach a durable tariff agreement with President Donald Trump’s administration, after Beijing and Washington reached preliminary deals in May and June to end escalating tit-for-tat tariffs and a cut-off of rare earth minerals.
‘Constructive’ Stockholm Talks
After two days of what both sides called constructive talks in Stockholm, U.S. and Chinese officials on Tuesday agreed to pursue an extension of their 90-day tariff truce, in a bid to ease the escalating trade war between the world’s two largest economies that poses a threat to global economic growth.
No major breakthroughs were announced, and U.S. officials said it was up to President Donald Trump to decide whether to extend a trade truce that expires on August 12 or potentially let tariffs shoot back up to triple-digit figures. But U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tamped down any expectation of Trump rejecting the extension.
“The meetings were very constructive,” Bessent told reporters after the meetings wrapped up. “It’s just that we haven’t given the signoff.”
As Trump returned to Washington after visiting Scotland, where he inked a trade deal with the European Union, he said Bessent had just briefed him on the China talks.
“He felt very good about the meeting, better than he felt yesterday,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.
After months of threatening high tariffs on trading partners, Trump has secured trade pacts with the EU, Japan, Indonesia and others, but China’s powerhouse economy and grip on global rare earth flows make these talks particularly complex.
Both sides in May walked back from imposing triple-digit tariffs on each other in what would have amounted to a bilateral trade embargo. But global supply chains and financial markets could face renewed turmoil without an agreement.
(With inputs from Reuters)
