So here’s what happened. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on Fox News Wednesday and announced that the U.S. and China are extending what they call the “Busan Agreement,” the trade truce that was supposed to expire November 10, all the way to January 10. President Trump signed an executive order making it official, and China said it’ll extend its own retaliatory suspensions for another 90 days too.
Now, if that truce hadn’t been extended, American tariffs on Chinese goods would have jumped to at least 54 percent at midnight. So somebody decided it was better to keep talking than to let the tariffs fly. Fair enough.
But here’s what I want to know. Bessent himself said, on television, out loud where everybody could hear, that “there are some deliverables that have not been perfect on the Chinese side.” Not perfect. Bless their hearts. That’s diplomat-speak for “they haven’t done what they promised.” And our response is to give them another 90 days?
chanho choi / PexelsI have questions.
The Chinese promised to buy more American goods, resume rare earth magnet exports, and generally behave like a trading partner instead of a rival that’s been eating our lunch for twenty years. And Bessent is sitting there telling us the deliverables “have not been perfect.” So we’re extending the deal anyway and hoping they’ll be “more fulsome in enacting the agreement” over the coming months. Hoping. That’s the word. We’re hoping the Chinese Communist Party will suddenly start keeping its word because we asked nicely.
Meanwhile, President Trump rolled out a 100-foot red carpet at Joint Base Andrews. A 21-person honor guard. Two B-1 bomber flyovers. For Xi Jinping. The leader of a communist country that’s been shipping fentanyl ingredients into ours, buying sanctioned oil from Russia and Iran, and restricting access to the rare earth materials