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President Trump answers a reporter's question in the Oval Office on Monday. On Wednesday, the president said he was hiking reciprocal tariffs against China to 125%. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images hide caption
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Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
President Trump said on social media Wednesday that he would reduce tariffs on most countries to 10% for 90 days but would immediately hike tariffs on China to 125%.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters outside the White House, "It took great courage — great courage — for him [Trump] to stay the course until this moment."
Bessent said China was the "biggest source" of trade issues for the United States and the rest of the world.
"I'm not calling it a trade war, but I'm saying that China has escalated, and President Trump responded very courageously to that, and we are going to work on a solution with the our trading partners," he said.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks to the press outside the West Wing of the White House on Wednesday about President Trump's decision to pause tariffs on U.S. trading partners, but not for China. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
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Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Bessent said the decision to pause tariffs was not made because of the sharp decline in the stock market, insisting the pause was needed to come to "bespoke" trade arrangements with other countries.
"It is going to take some time, and President Trump wants to be personally involved. So that's why we're getting the 90-day pause," he said.
Bessent said that a range of issues would be on the table during talks with other countries, including liquefied natural gas (LNG) deals, non-tariff trade barriers, currency policies and subsidies. He said he has a meeting with Vietnamese officials today.
"These are complicated negotiations. These are imbalances that have taken decades to create," he said.
Bessent told reporters that Trump had made his decision on Sunday. "This was driven by the president's strategy. He and I had a long talk on Sunday, and this was his strategy all along."
He said that Trump had "goaded China into a bad position" with its decision to hike its own retaliatory tariff to 84% on all U.S. imports.
