Trump’s tariffs spark global recession fears as White House hints at trade deal with China: Live updates

…and yet is only in talks with 34 countries.

Andrew Feinberg reports from Washington, D.C.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent believes there will be a de-escalation in U.S.-China trade tensions, but negotiations with Beijing have not yet started and would be a “slog,” according to a person present at closed-door remarks he gave to investors at a JP Morgan conference on Tuesday.

Bessent described the current bilateral trade situation as a two-way embargo, and neither side views the status quo as sustainable, the person told Reuters. The treasury secretary added that the Trump administration’s goal was not to decouple the world’s two largest economies.

Instead, Bessent expressed hope for a “big, beautiful rebalancing” of China’s economy towards more consumption and the U.S. economy towards more manufacturing, but it was unclear whether Beijing was ready to do that, the source said.

The private investment conference took place in Washington, D.C., on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Spring Meetings. Bloomberg first reported on some of Bessent’s remarks.

Currently, the U.S. has 145 percent tariffs on Chinese goods, and China has 125 percent tariffs on American-made goods.

Bessent predicts that a de-escalation would occur in the “very near future” and would provide “a sigh of relief” for markets, the person said.

Bessent’s comments contributed to positive corporate earnings momentum on Wall Street, which rebounded from Monday’s sell-off sparked by President Donald Trump’s criticism of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

Major U.S. stock indexes were up more than 2% in afternoon trading.

In other remarks, Bessent indicated that the Trump administration would be willing to offer Argentina’s government some financial support if a global shock derailed the South American country’s economic recovery, the person said.

Such help would be contingent on Javier Milei’s government remaining committed to reforms and ensuring that any difficulties were not Argentina’s fault. Bessent was in Buenos Aires last week to show support for the reforms and a $20 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.

With reporting from Reuters

Gustaf Kilander reports from Washington, D.C.

At today’s White House briefing, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about the independence of the Federal Reserve.

Leavitt responded: “I think the president made his position on the Fed and Powell quite clear. The president believes they have been making moves and taking action in the name of politics rather than in the name of what is right for the American economy.

“The president has the right to express his displeasure with the Fed and believes interest rates should be lower.

“I also spoke to Kevin Hassett about the Fed. He’s called into question the Fed’s Independence and whether they are actually doing things out of the best interest of the economy or if they are doing it for partisan reasons. The president wants to see interest rates lower. He’s made that quite clear.”

The puerile president wrote on social media: “There can be a SLOWING of the economy unless Mr. Too Late, a major loser, lowers interest rates, NOW.”

In recent days, such has been the ferocity of Trump’s personal attacks on Powell over his handling of the US economy that, on Monday, the value of the dollar sank to its lowest point in three years. Stocks, already bruised by the “Trump Slump” from global tariffs, have taken a further hit.

Last week, the Pentagon quietly placed three top aides — Dan Caldwell, Colin Carroll and Darin Selnick — on administrative leave in connection with a widening probe into leaked internal messages from a private Signal chat. The messages, which allegedly revealed internal dissent and strategic planning inside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s inner circle, have prompted national security concerns and questions about internal vetting at the Department of Defense.

That, of course, comes hot on the heels of the whole “bombing the Houthis while sharing fist-bump emojis and American flags” thing we all had to contend with a few weeks prior.

If you were hoping for sober accountability or a show of calm leadership in response, however, Tuesday morning’s Fox & Friends interview with Hegseth delivered instead…something else entirely.

At the start of the year, President Donald Trump appointed three “special ambassadors” to Hollywood: Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson, and Jon Voight.

Politico reports that the White House is nearing general agreements on trade with Japan and India to stave off massive U.S. tariffs, but many of the more challenging details are likely to be decided at a later date.

Given the short time frame the Trump administration has given itself, in the absence of full-fledged trade deals, officials are working to agree what three people close to the White House described as “memorandums of understanding” or a broad “architecture” for future deals, the outlet reports, noting that those people were granted anonymity to discuss the details of internal deliberations.

It “may take months to hammer out the final deals,” said one person, conceding, “these things are complicated.”