WASHINGTON, Oct 15 (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday insisted that Washington didn’t need to escalate a commerce battle with China, stressing that President Donald Trump is ready to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea later this month.
Bessent informed a CNBC occasion that officers from each nations had been in contact each day to arrange the assembly, and Washington didn’t need to decouple from the second-largest financial system in the world.
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He mentioned it was due to belief between Trump and Xi that the commerce battle between the 2 nations has not escalated additional.
On Wednesday, Bessent mentioned China had clearly supposed to take motion “all along,” rejecting Beijing’s declare that the actions had been a response to U.S. actions.
Bessent informed CNBC a lower-level Chinese commerce official had threatened to “unleash chaos” if the U.S. went forward with port charges on Chinese ships in August.
“There was a lower-level trade person who was slightly unhinged here in August … saying that China would unleash chaos on the global system if the U.S. went ahead with our docking fees for Chinese ships,” Bessent mentioned.
Reporting by David Lawder and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Paul Simao
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