National Economic Council (NEC) Director Kevin Hassett dismissed the notion that President Trump is worried about empty shelves in supermarkets and households due to the ongoing tariff war and claimed the U.S. is actively engaged in trade negotiations with scores of countries around the world.
“No, absolutely not,” Hassett said Wednesday night in an interview on Fox News’s “The Ingraham Angle,” when asked if the president has concerns over empty shelves in homes as a result of his tariff agenda.
“We have got virtually every country on earth negotiating with us right now,” Hassett told guest host Brian Kilmeade. “We have got the Chinese open to talks already. The president has moved the world in a way that is unprecedented and it’s in the direction of the American worker.”
Hassett added that he is “very optimistic” about a potential trade agreement with China — one of the U.S.’s biggest trading partners — claiming that officials on both ends have been in active talks on a variety of topics.
“It’s clear that the president and our team are open to talks. The Chinese have signaled that they’re open to talks,” Hassett said Wednesday. “In addition, the president has mentioned that American government officials and Chinese government officials are talking every day about many things, and often current events come up.”
Trump has acknowledged that the additional 125 percent import tax, paired with an existing 20 percent tariff, levied on Beijing earlier this month was “very high” and expressed confidence that he can forge a fresh trade deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“We’re dealing with a lot of countries right now and could be with China, but maybe we’ll make a special — you know, a deal — and we will see what it will be. Right now, it’s at 145 percent, that’s very high,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday.
China asserted on Thursday that it is not actively negotiating with the U.S., with Commerce Ministry spokesperson He Yadong saying any “claims about the progress of China-U.S. trade negotiations are groundless as trying to catch the wind and have no factual basis.”
After slapping the outsized tariffs on China, Beijing responded with its own 125 percent tariff on U.S. goods. The president has halted most of the retaliatory tariffs he imposed on foreign imports for 90 days to make some wiggle room for negotiations — but China was not on the exempt list.
The nation has also paused exports of some rare earth minerals to the U.S. and has filed several complaints with the World Trade Organization over the Trump administration’s trade war.