Bessent: Canada Ad 'a Big Setback' for Trade Talks
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in two TV interviews, praised the president's trade diplomacy in Asia, and said "a price has got to be paid" for Ontario's ad quoting former President Ronald Reagan in support of free trade.
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CNN host Jake Tapper pressed Bessent in an interview that aired Nov. 2 on whether the 10% tariff President Donald Trump threatened over that ad would come to pass. "We’ll see," Bessent said. "I do think it was a big setback for the Canadian government."
Trump said over the weekend that trade talks have not resumed with Canada, even after Prime Minister Jay Carney apologized for the ad.
Bessent called the ad "the equivalent of election interference."
On Fox Business the same day, Bessent was asked if the U.S. can really develop rare earth alternatives in the yearlong pause China offered for a rare earth export licensing scheme.
He acknowledged it would take more time than that, but said that the U.S. could threaten high tariffs again in a year -- Trump had threatened 100% tariffs on Chinese goods after they announced the rare earth restrictions, and Bessent said that's why China came to the table.
The reporter also asked if China could be trusted to follow through on its promised crackdown on fentanyl precursor chemical exports. Ten percentage points of the tariffs on Chinese goods will be removed on Nov. 10 because of those promises.
"We took half of them off as a sign of good faith," Bessent said, and said that the U.S. will have "very strict quantitative criteria" to judge if China is doing what it promised. He said they'll check in six or 12 months.
"My sense is, the tariffs could go up or down" based on that analysis, he said.