Bessent’s double-dealing at the G20

"We can no longer afford for China to have a trade surplus of 1,200 billion dollars. Their economy is weak and they are trying to recover by focusing on exports." The new frontier in relations between Washington and Beijing is marked by the words spoken by the US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, at the G20 summit in North Carolina. The message is clear: trade conditions between the two countries “must be reviewed”, but so too must the rest of the world, in the face of the extraordinary influx of Chinese goods into the United States, Latin America and Europe. The American argument is that Beijing must rebalance its growth model by strengthening domestic demand and reducing the drive for exports, which is also fuelled by subsidies. “The rest of the world will have to re-examine its trade conditions with China,” Bessent insisted. A call to arms for a new global trade war: all against one. Washington wants a commitment from other countries to deter the flood of Chinese goods, perhaps because it knows it cannot fight alone or because it wants to gauge the West’s loyalty, particularly that of Europe.

But the G20 also reveals the other side of Trump’s politics. Whilst Bessent is calling on allies to close ranks against Beijing, he met on the sidelines of the summit with Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov – the first Russian minister to attend a G20 meeting since the start of the war in Ukraine – to discuss Trump’s ‘peace plan’. Siluanov’s presence irritated the Europeans, who threatened to boycott the group photo if the Russian minister took part (in the end, Siluanov did not turn up). The political message remains: a united front against China, a direct channel with Moscow. It is the classic Trump approach: either with me or against me, but with alliances and adversaries that shift depending on the issue at hand. And the exclusion of Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times from the summit proceedings reduces the scope for unwelcome questions.