Bessent Warns Reciprocal Tariffs Will Return Without 'Good Faith' Talks

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Newsweek

Published May 18, 2025 at 2:17 PM EDT


U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned during a Sunday appearance on NBC News' Meet the Press that countries failing to negotiate in "good faith" with the United States could face a return to reciprocal tariff levels that were unveiled on "Liberation Day" on April 2. Newsweek has reached out to the U.S. Department of the Treasury's press team for comment via email on Sunday.

Why It Matters

Bessent's tariff comments come after the U.S. and China agreed to pause their reciprocal tariffs for 90 days last week, with both sides bringing their rates down by 115 percentage points. This agreement reduced the tariffs imposed on Chinese goods by President Donald Trump to 30 percent, and those imposed on U.S. goods by Beijing to 10 percent. The two power economies are continuing negotiations during this pause.

On April 2, Trump announced a series of sweeping global tariffs, including a baseline 10 percent on all imported goods and the widely anticipated "reciprocal" tariffs. Their implementation led the stock markets to drop drastically, with Wall Street posting its worst losses since 2020 and trillions of dollars in value erased. Shortly after the "reciprocal" tariffs went into effect in April, Trump paused most of them for 90 days, which sent the markets surging. Notably, he did not delay tariffs on China then.

Economists and experts have warned that Trump's tariffs, which are effectively a tax imposed on imported goods, will inevitably increase costs for Americans. Trump has defended his policies saying the tariffs will cause "some little pain" upfront but in the long term will be "worth the price that must be paid."

Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/bessent-warns-reciprocal-tariffs-will-return-without-good-faith-talks-2073819

[tanyev]

1. Treasury Secretary for a president that does NOTHING in good faith sez wut?

[Tarzanrock]

2. And when those new "reciprocol" tariffs fail just like all the other insane tariffs ...

the Turd will put all those other countries on "double secret probation."

[Scrivener7]

3. And then it'll be rescinded when the shorts all pay off.

[0rganism]

8. Bounce those market indices like a basketball and your rich sycophants will prosper

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. Regime def'n of "negotiating in good faith": if you don't cave unilaterally, it's not good faith. . . . nt

[BidenRocks]

5. I ignore Bissent

He's a douchebag and the world knows it!

[BumRushDaShow]

6. Never thought I'd see someone worse than Mnuchin

yet here we are.

[Skittles]

7. THIS!!!

THEY CONSISTENTLY BEAT THEIR OWN LOW BAR

[kkmarie]

9. It would definitely hurt our house

for prices to sky rocket and for products to become unavailable, due to tariffs. And I don't know if it's wrong of me, I keep wishing and hoping these countries don't bend. And Yam Tits's Liberation Day tariffs actually go into full effect and all his supporters are hurting because of them.
But I am pretty positive they will be just fine with it as long as the regime keeps sending non-white people to concentration camps.

Something has to wake these people up! Doesn't it?

[Ray Bruns]

10. Translation: "countries aren't calling us begging for deals"

[wolfie001]

11. I'm thinking they're already fudging economic data in the reports they're releasing

If you're still in the Govt at this point and trying to protect your livelihood, would you report any bad news to these repulsive psychopaths?

[lark]

12. In other words, any country that doesn'f offer tsf kingly profiteering opportunities is toast.

Or that's what they are saying today, but of course tsf will continue to do Pooty's bidding in his efforts to destroy American workers and our countrys' international power.