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The Trump administration plans to use ongoing tariff negotiations to pressure U.S. trading partners to limit their dealings with China, according to people with knowledge of the conversations.
The idea is to extract commitments from U.S. trading partners to isolate China’s economy in exchange for reductions in trade and tariff barriers imposed by the White House. U.S. officials plan to use negotiations with more than 70 nations to ask them to disallow China to ship goods through their countries, prevent Chinese firms from locating in their territories to avoid U.S. tariffs, and not absorb China’s cheap industrial goods into their economies.
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One brain behind the strategy is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has taken a leading role in the trade negotiations since Trump announced a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for most nations—but not China—on April 9.
Bessent pitched the idea to Trump during an April 6 meeting in Mar-a-Lago, said people familiar with the discussion, saying that extracting concessions from U.S. trading partners could prevent Beijing and its firms from avoiding U.S. tariffs, export controls and other economic measures, the people said.
Bessent's head is absolutely going to roll if there are no major breakthroughs at the end of the 90 day period. The very fact that China has traded blow for blow with the US ought to give all the other nations a lot of confidence in negotiations.
The tactic is part of a larger strategy being pushed by Bessent to isolate the Chinese economy, which has gained traction among Trump officials recently. Debates over the scope and severity of U.S. tariffs are ongoing, but officials largely appear to agree with Bessent’s China plan.
It involves cutting China off from the U.S. economy with tariffs and potentially even cutting Chinese stocks out of U.S. exchanges. Bessent didn’t rule out the administration trying to delist Chinese stocks in a recent interview with Fox Business. "
