US pushes G20 to adopt tariff strategy against Chinese trade imbalances

Scott Bessent, the US Treasury Secretary, arrived at a two-day G20 finance ministers' meeting in Asheville, North Carolina, with a direct message for his counterparts: adopt tariffs. The Trump administration, he argued, had already shown the way. When the US imposed steep duties on Chinese goods the year before, Chinese exporters simply redirected their shipments elsewhere—flooding other countries' markets with products that domestic industries could no longer compete against. "And unfortunately, I was right," Bessent told the assembled finance chiefs. "They have – and the rest of the world probably needs to take a hard look at what they should be doing to protect their citizens' jobs."

The arithmetic behind his argument was stark. China's exports had surged 23.9 percent in July alone, year-over-year, driven by a domestic economy too weak to absorb its own production. Electric vehicles, semiconductors, and countless other goods were flooding outward. Bessent framed this not as a Chinese problem alone but as a global one—a drain on growth everywhere. "We're seeing a lot of non-market economies with these big imbalances that are sucking growth from the rest of the world," he said.

Yet the pitch faced immediate friction. European Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis acknowledged that China was indeed a major source of imbalance, but pushed back on the idea that tariffs were the only answer. The US and Europe, he suggested, also bore responsibility for the world's economic distortions. German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil was sharper still. He named the US-Israel conflict with Iran and the ongoing tariff disputes themselves as major sources of economic uncertainty. "Uncertainty is poison for economic growth," he said. "The tariff conflicts being pursued by the US, such as the current dispute with Canada, destroy trust."

The tension reflected a deeper split. The Trump administration's tariff strategy had already raised the retail price of imported consumer goods by roughly 7 percent, according to the Tax Foundation, an independent research organization. Economists and politicians had criticized the approach for raising costs on American households and, in many cases, for damaging relationships with allies. Now, with Bessent asking others to follow suit, the question was whether they would—or whether they would instead blame American policy for the very instability he was trying to address.

China, for its part, showed no sign of yielding to pressure. The country had long resisted calls to cut industrial subsidies or rebalance its economy toward domestic consumption. Its currency, the yuan, remained significantly undervalued by most measures. In April 2025, Beijing had tightened export restrictions on rare earths—a move that punished not just American companies but global manufacturers dependent on those materials. It was a reminder that trade disputes were no longer bilateral affairs; they rippled across supply chains worldwide.

As the meeting progressed, it remained unclear whether the G20 could produce a joint statement on reducing global imbalances. The forum's diversity—spanning developed and developing nations, US allies and strategic competitors—made consensus difficult even in calmer times. Now, with the US pushing one direction and Europe signaling concern about American policy itself, the path forward was obscured. What seemed clear to Bessent as a necessary correction looked to others like a source of the very uncertainty that was holding back growth.