Bessent Defends Trump Tariffs as Fix for Decades of U.S. Supply-Chain Dependence

7 articles · Updated · Reuters · May 29

Scott Bessent said in prepared remarks for a Friday speech that decades of bipartisan policy mistakes left the U.S. industrial base weakened and too reliant on adversaries including China.
The Treasury secretary argued Trump’s America First agenda — especially tariffs and efforts to rebuild shipbuilding, critical-minerals and pharmaceutical supply chains — is beginning to reverse that vulnerability.
Bessent said the strategy is not a wholesale retreat from trade, but a push to separate healthy interdependence from dangerous overdependence and to engage globally on what he called fairer, stronger terms.
His remarks follow Trump’s summit with Xi Jinping two weeks ago, which underscored the U.S.-China economic standoff even as both sides agreed to managed trade, investment and some Chinese purchases of U.S. goods.
The speech offered no new policy steps and did not address fresh risks from the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz closure, while China remains hard to replace in critical minerals and electronics.

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