Catenaa, Friday, May 23, 2025- US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US could be announcing “several large” trade deals in the next couple of weeks, as the Trump administration is expected to meet with China for tariff talks.
“My sense is, over the next couple of weeks we’re going to have several large deals announced,” Bessent said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Friday.
Regarding China, he said, “I expect that we will be negotiating in person with them again,” and he declined to specify which nations the US is likely to announce deals with in the coming weeks.
The remarks build on Bessent’s comments earlier on Friday that he anticipates such deals will come ahead of the expiration of the 90-day pause on the steep “reciprocal” rates that President Donald Trump unveiled on April 2.
“These deals are moving quickly, and I think as we approach the end of the 90-day period, we’re going to see more and more of them announced,” Bessent said in an earlier interview with Fox News. “Many of the asian countries have come with very good deals.”
Bessent said that most US trading partners have been negotiating “in very good faith” and that the European Union is an “exception”.
On Friday, Trump threatened a 50% tariff on EU goods starting on June 1, saying “our discussions with them are going nowhere”.
“I think this is in response just to the EU’s pace,” Bessent said of Trump’s threat. “I would hope that this would light a fire under the EU.”
When asked about the tax bill that passed the House earlier this week, the Treasury chief said that Senate Majority Leader John Thune is aiming “to take this up immediately, and I’m not expecting that there’s going to have to be that much change” in the legislation in that chamber.
