Bessent says US, Chinese officials considering lowering tariffs on 'noncritical' items

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday officials from the U.S. and China are considering lowering tariffs on “noncritical” products, as President Trump prepares to host Chinese President Xi Jinping this week in Washington, D.C.

During an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Bessent said the two sides “floated” a deal to reduce tariffs on $30 billion worth of goods each country imports from the other during a May summit in Beijing. 

Bessent added that U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and his team met with Chinese officials for “most of the day” in New York City on Sunday and discussed such an agreement.

“They’ve been having extensive discussions before [on whether] there [are] items that are noncritical to both sides that we would like to take down to most favored nation tariff levels,” Bessent told host Joe Kernen, referencing trade advantages the U.S. and China would grant to each other that are greater than or equivalent to other parameters they provide to other countries. 

Under the deal, American businesses would be able to export more agricultural goods and energy-related products to China, Bessent said.

Trump and Xi will meet in D.C. later this week, less than five months after the U.S. president met with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing. Trump left China without a deal to extend the trade truce that officials from the two countries agreed to last October.

That agreement, under which the president reduced tariffs on Chinese goods and Xi pledged to maintain export levels of critical minerals, expires on Nov. 10. 

Greer said Monday on “Bloomberg Surveillance” the talks with Chinese officials in New York were “positive” and “constructive.”

But the U.S. trade representative accused China of limiting rare earth exports, noting it would be “naive” to say the two sides have “full trust and full confidence” in each other.

“That’s probably the right kind of range,” Greer said, when host Annmarie Hordern asked whether he backed a three- to six-month extension of the trade truce.

Amid the trade disputes with China during Trump’s second term, the U.S. trade deficit with Beijing fell last year to less than $202.7 billion, the lowest mark since 2005, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. 

America’s trade deficit with China this year is on pace to be even lower, as it stood at roughly $91.2 billion as of the end of July, per the Census Bureau.