Let me tell you something about financial diplomacy—it's basically global poker where everyone's bluffing about their hand while secretly peeking at everyone else's cards. And this week's confusion around those supposed US-China trade negotiations? Pure theater of the absurd.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent showed up on ABC's This Week and delivered what I can only describe as diplomatic doublespeak that would make George Orwell reach for a stiff drink. When asked point-blank whether Trump has actually spoken with China's President Xi—something Trump has claimed repeatedly—Bessent basically shrugged and said, "I don't know if President Trump has spoken with President Xi."
Wait, what?
When your own Treasury Secretary can't (or won't) confirm whether the Commander-in-Chief is making stuff up about critically important economic negotiations... well, we've wandered into a financial twilight zone, haven't we? Meanwhile, China has flatly denied any talks are happening at all.
I've been covering trade negotiations since the Obama administration, and I've never seen this level of public contradiction between a president and his cabinet. It's bewildering.
The markets, which generally prefer actual information over whatever this is, have been surprisingly resilient. They've learned to filter presidential pronouncements through several layers of skepticism (a survival skill in today's environment).
Here's the thing about international trade talks—they operate on two tracks simultaneously. There's the substantive behind-closed-doors negotiation where actual progress happens, and then there's the public posturing designed for domestic consumption. Nothing new there.
But this situation? It's different.
The oddity isn't that the US and China might be saying different things publicly while quietly negotiating—that's Diplomacy 101. It's that Trump and his own Treasury Secretary appear to be publicly contradicting each other about whether talks are even happening. That's... unusual.
(I reached out to three former Treasury officials who all expressed confusion about the communication strategy at play here. None wanted to be quoted directly, but their raised eyebrows were practically audible over the phone.)
Bessent did reveal one interesting nugget—that he met with Chinese counterparts during IMF World Bank Week. But they only discussed "traditional things like financial stability, global economic early warnings." In diplomatic terms, that's equivalent to chatting about the weather while standing in a burning building.
Look, trade disputes of this magnitude are rarely resolved through public bluffing contests. Both economies are feeling pain points that will eventually force pragmatic solutions regardless of the public circus.
I spoke with an investment strategist at a major bank yesterday who summed it up perfectly: "We've stopped trying to interpret the words and instead focus exclusively on the actions. The rest is just noise."
Maybe that's the smartest approach for all of us. Because when it comes to US-China trade relations under the current administration, what officials say publicly might have almost no relationship to reality.
And that—frustrating as it is for those of us trying to make sense of it all—might be the only certainty we've got.
