US Treasury Secretary Bessent says China eyeing more Boeing purchases ahead of Xi visit

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed on Wednesday that China is “very interested” in additional Boeing plane purchases, an issue the Trump administration plans to press when President Xi Jinping visits the United States in September.

“They agreed to 200 aeroplanes during the visit. We will see if they commit to a larger number when Xi Jinping arrives in Washington,” Bessent said in his budget request testimony to the Senate Finance Committee.

China’s commitment to buy 200 Boeing aircraft was one of the key deliverables of US President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing last month, which the White House termed an “initial purchase.”

Sourabh Gupta, a Resident Senior Fellow at the Institute for China-America Studies highlighted that Boeing purchases were “expressly tied” to the continuity of supply of engines and parts for China’s flagship C919 passenger jet.

“Once there is sufficient trust on assurance of flow, the number of Boeing jet purchases could reach up to an additional 500-550 more,” he predicted.

In a statement to the South China Morning Post, a spokesperson at the Chinese embassy in Washington said: “Specific commercial purchases should be decided by companies based on market principles.”

Bessent’s statement comes a day after the US Trade Representative’s office announced a public comment process regarding the newly created US-China Board of Trade – a mechanism to manage bilateral trade between the world’s two biggest economies.

“The United States and China will consider tariff modifications on imports of an equal value of non-sensitive goods from each side, while monitoring and evaluating outcomes over time,” the USTR said in a statement.

During the hearing, Bessent explained how the board would function, hinted at potential target industries, and claimed the selected items would be “tariff free”.

“If we pick a number – USD$30 billion by USD$30 billion ... non-critical industries, non-critical things – fireworks, Halloween costumes, very low-end consumer items that we do not want to reshore, that we want to buy from them,” he added.

Hilton Root, a professor at George Mason University, argued the board would need clear rules to “separate managed trade in non-sensitive goods from genuine national-security controls”.

“The Board of Trade could help keep non-sensitive trade from being swallowed by the security agenda, but it should not be framed as a mechanism for negotiating away core security determinations,” he told the South China Morning Post.

However, he insisted that an effective board requires “statutory authority vested in Congress”.

Gupta of the Institute for China-America Studies emphasised that the approach is workable “because of the enormous quantity of bilateral trade.”

“There is a good deal of mundane trade between the two sides...it should not be difficult to carve out many of these product lines and draw up a reciprocal arrangement,” he said.

USTR’s notice on Board of Trade on Tuesday coincided with the announcement of new tariffs of 10-12.5 per cent against 60 countries, including China, over forced labour allegations.

The proposed Section 301 tariffs are widely viewed as the administration’s attempt to restore import levies after the US Supreme Court struck down its emergency tariffs in February.

China criticised the US tariffs on Wednesday, saying that a “tariff war or trade war serves no one’s interests”.

Asserting that the two sides have “very good stability” in ties, Bessent maintained that the US does not seek to decouple but needs to “de-risk” in sensitive sectors like critical minerals, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals, calling reliance on China “unacceptable”.

He also accused Beijing of “predatory pricing” in critical minerals supply chains, highlighting the administration’s Project Vault stockpiling programme aimed at reducing reliance on Beijing and protecting US manufacturers from supply shortages.

“Critical minerals is one of the key industries that we’re focused on,” he stressed.

The Treasury secretary revealed that the US raised its long-term concerns over state subsidies during Trump’s visit to Beijing, maintaining its push to press the “Chinese to open their economy.”

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST