Treasury secretary on China and President Trump increasing tariffs on steel imports

WASHINGTON (CBS, KYMA/KECY) - Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about U.S.-China relations.

According to Brennan, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said there's an "imminent military threat from China to Taiwan" while Secretary of State Marco Rubio said "he'd aggressively revoked Chinese student visas" and Secretary Bessent said he was "curbing exports to China" while adding trade talks with Beijing are stalled.

This prompted Brennan to ask Bessent if the Trump Administration is "intentionally escalating" the standoff with Beijing, to which Bessent responded saying:

"I don't think it's intentional. I think that what Secretary Hegseth did was remind everyone that during COVID, China was an unreliable partner, and what we are trying to do is to de-risk. We do not want to decouple...but we do need to de-risk, as we saw during COVID, whether it was with semiconductors, medicines, the other products we are in the process of de-risking."

Brennan followed up by asking Bessent what President Donald Trump meant when he said China violated an agreement the latter negotiated in Geneva last month, as well as the consequences, with Bessent saying:

"We will see what the consequences are. I am confident that when President Trump and party Chairman Xi have a call, that this will be ironed out. So...but the fact that they are withholding some of the products that they agreed to release during our agreement...maybe it's a glitch in the Chinese system, maybe it's intentional. We'll see after the President speaks with party chairman."

During the interview, Brennan and Bessent talked about price increases, with Brennan bringing up her previous interview with the secretary back in March, where Bessent said he was going to "appoint an affordability czar and council to figure out five or eight areas where there will be some pain for working class Americans."

This prompted Brennan to ask Bessent where he was anticipating price increases, to which Bessent said, "We wanted to make sure that there aren't price increases...and thus far there have been no price increases. Everything has been alarmist, that the inflation numbers are actually dropping. We saw the first drop of inflation in four years. The inflation numbers last week, they were very pro-consumer."

Bessent also added, "A lot of it's already working its way through the system. So we've seen a substantial decrease in gasoline and energy prices. So that's down 20% year over year. We've seen the food prices go down, these notorious egg prices. Through the good work of President Trump and Secretary [Brooke] Rollins, egg prices have collapsed. So we're seeing more and more. And what we want to do is even that out across the all sections of the economy. So inflation has been very tame. Consumer earnings were up 0.8% last month, which is a gigantic increase for one month. So real earnings minus low inflation is great for the American people, and that's what we're seeing."

Later in the interview, Brennan and Bessent talked about Trump increasing tariffs on steel imports.

President Trump announced that he would be doubling tariffs on steel to 50% as he visited a U.S. Steel mill in the Pittsburgh suburbs Friday, a week after teasing a "planned partnership" between the company and its Japanese competitor Nippon Steel.

"We are going to be imposing a 25% increase. We're going to bring it from 25% to 50% the tariffs on steel into the United States of America, which will even further secure the steel industry in the United States," he said.

Mr. Trump later noted on his Truth Social platform that the increase would also be applied to aluminum, and would take effect on June 4.

The Nippon deal will allow U.S. Steel's headquarters to remain in Pennsylvania, according to Mr. Trump, who characterized the agreement last Sunday as "an investment" and "partial ownership" that will be "controlled" by the United States. The administration, however, has released few details about the deal.

When asked how much will the tariff increase impact the construction industry, Bessent said, "I was with the president at the U.S. Steel Plant in Pittsburgh on Friday, and I will tell you that the President has reignited the steel industry here in America. And back to the earlier statements on national security. There are national security priorities here for having a strong steel industry."

To watch more of Brennan's interview with Bessent, click here.