Bessent says Fannie, Freddie release depends on mortgage rates
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says that any release of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from their current conservatorship would depend on the implications for mortgage rates.
Bloomberg
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the U.S. holds the upper hand in its budding trade war with China and called the Asian giant’s retaliation a “mistake” on Tuesday.
“I think it was a big mistake, this Chinese escalation, because they’re playing with a pair of twos,” Bessent said during an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” referencing a risky poker move. “What do we lose by the Chinese raising tariffs on us? We export one-fifth to them of what they export to us, so that is a losing hand for them.”
The U.S. goods trade deficit with China was $295.4 billion in 2024, a 5.8 percent increase ($16.3 billion) over 2023, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
Last week, President Donald Trump announced a 10% baseline universal tariff on all imports and additional individualized tariffs on goods from dozens of countries last week. Chinese products received a tariff of 34% on top of the 20% tariff they already had been hit with by March. Beijing then retaliated with 34% tariffs on U.S. goods. Soon after, Trump threatened China with an additional 50% tariffs on top of the 34% unveiled last week if the U.S. rival failed to withdraw its countermeasures. The current total stands at 104% tariffs on Chinese goods.
So far, Bessent said almost 70 countries have contacted the Trump administration looking to negotiate.
“Many of our trading partners have queued up and kept their cool and not escalated. They will get priority in the queue,” he said Wednesday. “You are going to see some very large countries with large trade deficits come forward very quickly.”
Bessent went on defend Trump, saying while he believed in trade, the fact that several countries have accumulated these “gigantic surpluses” over the years makes it clear that there are imbalances either from tariffs or other protectionist policies.
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal