US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pushed Friday for Canada and Mexico to match Washington's tariff hikes on China when asked in an interview if doing so could help them avert President Donald Trump's fresh levies.
Trump last Thursday said his proposed 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods will take effect on March 4, along with an extra 10% duty on Chinese imports, in addition to the 10% tariff levied on February 4.
“I do think one very interesting proposal that the Mexican government has made is perhaps matching the US on our China tariffs,” Bessent told Bloomberg Television in an interview.
“I think it would be a nice gesture if the Canadians did it also,” he added.
If both US neighbors did so, Bessent said, “we could have Fortress North America” guarding against a flood of Chinese goods.
Meanwhile, China’s vice premier said Beijing and Washington should seek ways to work together, even as Trump announced additional tariffs on the world’s second-largest economy.
“China and the US have extensive common interests and broad space for cooperation,” He Lifeng said at a dinner in Beijing Friday hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in China, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
“The nature of economic and trade relations between the two countries is mutually beneficial and win-win,” he said.
He indicated China would respond with countermeasures if the US continues to introduce additional trade restrictions, according to two people who attended the dinner, declining to be named because they were speaking about a private event.
Sarah Beran, deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Beijing, also spoke at the event, stressing the US wants fairness and reciprocity in the trade relationship. “We want to see an end to the unfair subsidies, and other measures that tilt the playing field against US companies,” Beran said, according to remarks shared by the US embassy in Beijing.
AI
Meanwhile, Chinese authorities are instructing the country's top artificial intelligence entrepreneurs and researchers to avoid travel to the United States, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.
The authorities are concerned that Chinese AI experts traveling abroad could divulge confidential information about the nation's progress, the newspaper said.
Authorities also fear that executives could be detained and used as a bargaining chip in US-China negotiations, the Journal said, drawing parallels to the detention of a Huawei executive in Canada at Washington's request during the first Trump administration.
The Journal report also reported that executives at leading Chinese companies in AI and other strategically sensitive industries, such as robotics, are being discouraged from traveling to the US and its allies unless absolutely necessary.
