A CBS News reporter regurgitated communist China’s talking points on the trade war with the U.S. as if Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was supposed to take them seriously. Surprise: He didn’t take the bait.
CBS News Senior White House Correspondent Weijia Jiang tried to corner Bessent by acting like a PR person for Beijing during an April 29 White House press briefing. “The Chinese continue to say that the U.S. and China are not engaged in any consultation on tariffs.” She then pressed, “Is the administration talking to Beijing specifically about tariffs or not,” as if Bessent would be stupid enough to blurt out the Trump administration’s current position in the negotiations to the world press.
After refusing to fall for Jiang’s absurd trap, Bessent gave her a lesson in trade economics: “Over time we will see that Chinese tariffs are unsustainable for China.” Remember, said Bessent, “We are the deficit country. They sell almost five times more goods to us than we sell to them, so the onus will be on them to take off these tariffs.”
“I’ve seen some very large numbers over the last few days that show if these numbers stay on, Chinese could lose ten million jobs very quickly,” Bessent footnoted. “Even if there is a drop in the tariffs,” he continued, “they could lose five million jobs.”
Bessent’s words apparently just flew over Jiang’s head as she just later repeated her initial question like a parrot. “They [China] are saying you guys are not talking about it. So is that true?” Bessent smirked before passively mocking Jiang for taking the Beijing government’s word for it and expecting him to tip his hand: “They [China] have a different form of government [communism] — they’re playing to a different audience so I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty again of who is talking to whom.”
Whatever the Trump administration’s trade strategy is, it appears to be having the intended effect on getting Chinese President Xi Jinping to cry “Uncle!” China expert and Gatestone Institute Senior Fellow Gordon Chang told Fox Business April 25 that early signs point to the Beijing government “caving” to President Trump in the trade war, “but they don't want to say they're caving.” Fox Business noted that while China “publicly announced it was not negotiating with the U.S. on trade, a later report from Reuters claimed China’s Ministry of Commerce taskforce is collecting lists of items that could be exempted from tariffs and is asking companies to submit their own requests.”
Apparently Jiang missed the memo on that, because she tried a third time to corner Bessent on the same ridiculous question but from a different angle. “Two days ago you said you didn’t know if President Trump had spoken to Xi Jinping. Do you know now?” Bessent’s answer was chef’s kiss:
“Again, I would say Karoline [Leavitt] and I have a lot of jobs around the White House. Running the switchboard isn’t one of them.”
Sheesh, get a clue Weijia.
