Scott Bessent Believes Trump, Xi Jinping Meeting Will ‘Still Be On’ Despite US-China Tariff Tensions: Report

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent reportedly still expects President Donald Trump to meet his Chinese counterpart, President Xi Jinping, in South Korea.

During an interview on Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria” on Monday, Bessent said that there had been “substantial communication” over the weekend between the U.S. and China after President Trump threatened the latter with “massive” tariff hikes over its export controls on rare earth elements.

“President Trump said that the tariffs would not go into effect until November 1. He will be meeting with Party Chair Xi in Korea. I believe that meeting will still be on,” Bessent said during the interview. However, the Treasury Secretary maintained that China had pointed a “bazooka” at the world with its rare earth export controls.

“We will not let these export restrictions and monitoring go on. And I believe that China is open to discussion on this,” he added.

Bessent’s comments come after President Trump on Friday said there seems to be no reason to meet President Xi following the export control announcement. “I was to meet President Xi in two weeks, at APEC, in South Korea, but now there seems to be no reason to do so. One of the policies that we are calculating at this moment is a massive increase of tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States of America,” President Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

Bessent added that he expects support from Europe, India, and other countries in Asia. “China is a command and control economy. They are neither going to command nor control us,” he said, while stating that the U.S. is willing to do whatever it takes. However, he maintained optimism that the tensions with China could still be de-escalated.

Presidents Trump and Xi were set to meet in person in South Korea during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit taking place from October 31 to November 1.

Meanwhile, U.S. equities rose in Monday’s pre-market trade. At the time of writing, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500 index, was up 1.22%, the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF (QQQ) surged 1.74%, while the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA) gained 0.85%. Retail sentiment around the S&P 500 ETF on Stocktwits was in the ‘neutral’ territory.

The iShares 7-10 Year Treasury Bond ETF (IEF) was up 0.05% at the time of writing.

Also See: Bloom Energy Shares Soar On $5 Billion Brookfield Deal To Deploy Its Fuel Cells To Power AI Data Centers

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