US Treasury Secretary Warns Countries Not to Align With China

Bessent did not provide details on what the Trump administration may do.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent arrives for a press conference with President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the East Room of the White House on Feb. 4, 2025. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday warned other countries not to align themselves with China on trade as it engaged in tit-for-tat tariffs on the United States.

Bessent delivered the warning at the American Bankers Association in Washington, saying that seeking closer ties with Beijing “would be cutting your own throat.”

He did not provide details on what the Trump administration may do if a country chooses to pivot toward China during the tariff impositions.

“For all of you who can remember that Disney movie with the brooms carrying buckets of water, that’s the Chinese business model,” Bessent said, relating China to the 1940 Disney film “Fantasia,” in which Mickey Mouse in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” segment directs animated brooms to carry water before it leads to a flood.

“They just keep producing and producing, dumping and dumping, and it’s going somewhere,” he added, referring to China’s economy.

Bessent also told Fox Business on Wednesday that the United States is not ruling out delisting Chinese stocks from U.S. exchanges when asked about the prospect. A database shows that there are currently 286 Chinese companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges.

“I think everything’s on the table,” he told the outlet before he referred to policies on export controls on goods and capital to China.

“That will be President Trump’s decision,” he added, saying that Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have “a very good personal relationship and I’m confident this will be resolved at the highest levels.”

Bessent in the interview also defended recent U.S. tariff impositions against China, totaling 104 percent, which went into effect on Wednesday morning. In response, Beijing announced it would impose 84 percent tariffs on American goods.

China is one of the few countries that moved to escalate in response to the tariffs. Later on Wednesday, the European Union announced it had approved its own set of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products.

Bessent and White House officials said this week that upwards of 70 countries have reached out to the administration to negotiate deals. Days after the initial announcement from Trump on tariffs, the leaders of Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, and Thailand signaled they would lower their duties on U.S. products.

Trump on April 2 announced a baseline tariff of 10 percent on nearly every country. Major U.S. trading partners received higher rates than the 10 percent.

Trump has shrugged off the market upheaval and offered investors mixed signals about whether the tariffs will remain in the long term, describing them as “permanent” but also saying that they are pressuring other leaders to negotiate. “Everything is going to work out well. The USA will be bigger and better than ever before!” he wrote on social media.

Trump has said he is open to negotiating down barriers with trading partners on a country-by-country basis. White House officials say that tariffs will help rebuild a domestic industrial base that has withered over decades of trade liberalization.

Reuters contributed to this report.