U.S.-China tariff pause not set, say Bessent, Greer

A potential extension of a tariff pause between the United States and China will not be agreed to until President Donald Trump signs off on the plan, U.S. negotiators said Tuesday.

Trump “has final say on all the trade deals” and the pending tariff truce, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC’s Eamon Javers.

The remarks came after top trade officials for the two countries concluded talks in Stockholm, Sweden, their third round of high-level discussions since May.

“We’re going to head back to Washington, D.C. We’re going to talk to the president about whether that’s something that he wants so do,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told reporters following the talks.

Trump, speaking to reporters on Air Force One around the same time, said he would get a briefing Wednesday on the status of the negotiations.

“I just had a phone call from Scott Bessent. They had a very good meeting with China, and it seems that they’re going to brief me tomorrow,” Trump said.

“We’ll either approve it or not. But he felt very good about the meeting, better than he felt that he felt yesterday,” he said.

Chinese trade negotiator Li Chenggang earlier said that the two sides agreed to continue to push for an extension of a 90-day pause on most of the U.S. “reciprocal” tariffs on Chinese goods, as well as most of Beijing’s retaliatory measures.

That pause is currently set to expire Aug. 12.

Bessent told reporters after Tuesday’s talks that if an extension is not reached by the deadline, then U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods will shoot back up to their April levels.

“We call it boomeranging,” Bessent said.

He said the trade teams will likely meet again in another 90 days.

Trump on April 2 said he would impose a 34% blanket duty on Chinese goods as part of the sweeping global tariff rollout that he dubbed “liberation day.”

A week later, he said he would hike the China tariffs to 125% — and that came on top of 20% fentanyl-related tariffs that Trump had previously imposed. China retaliated with its own steep tariffs on U.S. goods.

Both sides agreed to pause most of the tariffs in May, after their first trade meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.

Bessent gave a positive, but opaque, assessment of the latest talks. He said the two sides’ positions are getting more “refined” and suggested that their discussions have led to an increase in mutual respect and understanding.

But he said that the U.S. is not pleased with China continuing to buy oil from Iran – even though Trump gave Beijing his blessing to do so last month.

Bessent also said that the negotiators did not discuss TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media app whose fate in the U.S. has been in flux since the enactment of a law that would ban it unless it is sold.

“We are very careful to keep trade and national security separate,” he said.

Trade talks between the U.S. and China, the world’s two largest trading nation’s, are proceeding on a separate track from the rest of Trump’s efforts to quickly reshape America’s global trade relationships.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick confirmed on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” earlier Tuesday that Trump’s tariff rates for dozens of countries, which had been repeatedly paused, are set to restart Friday.

Bessent, asked by CNBC’s Javers about that looming tariff deadline, suggested that it should not be a major concern because the affected countries can continue to negotiate with the U.S.

“I would think that it’s not the end of the world if these snapback tariffs are on for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, as long as the countries are moving forward and trying to negotiate in good faith,” he said.