Scott Bessent emphasizes need to derisk US-China trade relations

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wants to make one thing clear: the United States isn’t trying to break up with China. It just wants to restructure the relationship so that both sides feel a little less exposed. Speaking at the BTG Pactual CEO Conference in Sao Paolo, Bessent laid out what amounts to a recalibrated trade philosophy for the second Trump administration. The core message: de-risk, not decouple. The specifics behind the slogan Bessent proposed the creation of two new bilateral institutions: a “Board of Trade” and a “Board of Investment.” Their job would be to identify non-strategic goods that could qualify for tariff reductions, potentially covering around $30 billion worth of tariffs on each side. That number sounds significant until you zoom out. China’s global trade surplus sits at an estimated $1.2 trillion. A $30 billion tariff rollback is roughly 2.5% of the surplus figure the US keeps pointing to as evidence that something is structurally off. Bessent described the current state of US-China relations as being in “a very comfortable place.” His ongoing dialogue with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng appears to be producing at least the appearance of mutual willin...