U.S. trade representative on gas prices, trade with China and soybean trade

(CBS, KYMA) - U.S. Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about gas prices.

According to Brennan, gas in the U.S. is at $4.51 per gallon, with Americans spending $45 billion more on gas since the war with Iran began versus a year ago.

In addition, Brennan said while the stock market is up, lower-income Americans are pulling back on spending, with the New York Fed reporting households earning less than $125,000 a year are fueling up their cars less often.

This prompted her to ask Greer how the Trump Administration will provide relief to the average American, to which he said:

"We know that no one wants to see higher gas prices. At the same time, the president is balancing foreign policy considerations. We know that, in addition to wanting to have low gas prices, we don't want our children or grandchildren to inherit a world where Iran has a nuclear weapon, so the president is focused on affordability in as many ways that he can. He's bringing jobs back to America. We're focused on getting wages up to offset any kind of increase in prices, and we're seeing prices go down for staples like dairy, cheese, flour, etc. So we're very focused on this. The president's focused on it, and we look forward to seeing those prices come down soon as the operations wrap up in the Gulf."

During the interview, Brennan and Greer talked about trade with China, with President Donald Trump telling reporters he will not discuss tariffs with Chinese President Xi Jinping at all.

This led Brennan to ask if the U.S. is in an indefinite trade truce with China, or if the Trump Administration is looking at bringing the tariff rate back to where it was before the Supreme Court ruling, and Greer said:

"The Chinese know, and that's part of our deal, that the United States can can elevate tariffs to the higher level that we had at the time of what we call the Busan deal in October, when President Xi and President Trump met, following the Supreme Court case in February, about 10 percentage points were knocked off the tariff rate for China. We believe under our deal that we are able to elevate that again. The president is exploring different tools that he has. I don't want to prejudge a lot of the investigations that are happening. The Chinese know, just like many other countries we're dealing with, that we're going to have a certain level of tariff to control our imports, but that we also expect market opening."

Brennan brought up her previous interview with Greer earlier this year, where he said when some of the tariffs expire in July, he would expect a roll out of the new tariffs after the end of the investigations under authority 301.

When asked if he is now saying he no longer expects tariffs to come into place after July of this year, Greer said:

"I think I was careful to tell you because my general counsel always tells me to say this. I can't prejudge the outcomes of those investigations. Those investigations, if they find on...tariff barriers or unfair trading practices, they can authorize the president to take actions like tariffs, like fees on services, like quotas, things like that. So we'll certainly be presenting the president with those options, if those, if those investigations show what we think they might show, which is that there's a huge problem with over capacity in China and other countries. So we'll get back to you on the findings in those investigations when they conclude."

Later in the interview, Brennan and Greer talked about soybean trade, with an editorial from the Wall Street Journal saying President Trump "boasted about about fantastic Chinese purchases of U.S. soybeans in aircraft, but China didn't confirm the sales, and by our count, this is the second time China has bought the same American soybeans, or is it the third?"

According to Brennan, they are also arguing the Trump Administration is "playing a shell game here with, like, reannouncing past deals on past agreements to purchase over a period of time."

This led Brennan to ask if Greer can answer the conservative skeptics with any specifics regarding the summit between Trump and Jinping, and he said:

"First of all, we've had a deal in place with the Chinese since October that they would buy 25 million metric tons of soybeans each year for the rest of the president's administration, so that deal is still in force. What we expect with the new purchase agreements, where the specific number will be announced very soon, double digit purchases of aggregate agricultural products. When I say aggregate, I mean everything else that could be soybeans, that could be beef, that could be grains, that could be dairy products, all kinds of things. So we have the existing soybean deal that they may be referring to, and then over on top of that we have these agricultural products as well, and all of that will be facilitated by Board of Trade discussions with the Chinese."

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