Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent predicted a “pretty big breakthrough” in the next round of trade talks with China, even as the Trump administration takes steps to marshal support for American farmers hurt by a decline in Chinese purchases.
“The most important thing we’re going to see” is a pull-aside meeting of Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping at a regional summit in South Korea scheduled for late October, Bessent said in an interview on CNBC Thursday. He added that his own parallel trade talks with Vice Premier He Lifeng “which would be our fifth round of talks, should show a pretty big breakthrough.”
Bessent pointed out that the upcoming negotiations occur before the scheduled Nov 10 expiration of a truce on the highest level of tariffs that each country had levelled at the other with earlier this year. Despite that truce, China has curtailed purchases of US soybeans, stoking concern not just in the agriculture industry but among politicians representing farming districts.
“It’s unfortunate the Chinese leadership has decided to use the American farmers, soybean farmers, in particular, as a hostage or pawn in the trade negotiations,” Bessent said.
The Treasury chief said that he had a meeting in the Oval Office on Wednesday with Trump and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, and that news would be coming next Tuesday on support for American farmers, and the soy sector in particular.
