Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said he is urging some of his G20 counterparts to adopt measures similar to those used by the Trump administration, including tariffs, to address trade imbalances. Speaking on the sidelines of the G20 finance ministers’ meetings, Bessent said he had warned other countries at the start of President Donald Trump’s second term that the new US “tariff wall” would push Chinese goods into their markets.
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He said those concerns had since played out and argued that other countries should consider steps to protect jobs and manufacturing. His remarks came as the Trump administration’s trade policies continued to face criticism at home, even as it reworked its tariff strategy after a US Supreme Court ruling.
“And unfortunately, I was right,” Bessent told reporters. “The rest of the world probably needs to take a hard look at what they should be doing to protect their citizens’ jobs, their manufacturing base, so that everything they do doesn’t get offshored.” Economists and politicians have criticised the Trump administration’s tariff policies for raising costs for US consumers and, in many cases, penalising allies. The Tax Foundation, an independent think tank, said tariffs imposed by the administration through 2025 raised the overall retail price of imported consumer goods by about 7 per cent compared with pre-tariff trends.
In February, the US Supreme Court ruled that the broad global tariffs imposed by Trump during his second term under an emergency powers law were unconstitutional. Since then, the administration has been overhauling its approach and is considering an additional 7.5 per cent tariff on Chinese imports after investigating alleged excess industrial capacity in China and forced-labour regulations.
Bessent also met his Chinese counterparts at the summit, but did not give details of the talks. “I often say in our trade discussions with China that we do not want to pull apart from them, but we have to de-risk,” he said on Tuesday in a conversation with Fox Business commentator Larry Kudlow, who was a top economic adviser to Trump in his first term. He added, “We have more in common with the Chinese on Iran than we disagree on. The Chinese agree Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. The Chinese agree that there should be freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz.”
Bessent has said China’s trade surplus, which reached a record USD 1.2 trillion in 2025, is a barrier to global economic growth, along with what he described as excessive regulation. He also referred to concerns over rising debt, with global debt at a record USD 353 trillion and US debt touching a record USD 40 trillion in August. Amid market worries over a sell-off in US government bonds, Bessent said, “I don’t think we’re in any kind of dire situation” on bond markets. Overall, he used the G20 meetings to press his case on trade imbalances while defending the broader direction of US policy.
With PTI Inputs
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SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
