Dylan Wagemans
US TREASURY Secretary Scott Bessent issued a warning with a specific emphasis on Spain that aligning with China would be like ‘cutting one’s throat’.
The warning comes in the context of Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez’s Asian tour, with stops in Vietnam and China.
Bessent implied that China is ‘insatiable’ and that ‘allowing them into your market will eventually backfire’.
“They never stop, they keep producing, and dumping, and dumping. If their products don’t come here, they will have to go somewhere else,” he said.
Sanchez is visiting China to reaffirm Spain’s relations with the Asian country, saying that the partnership ‘should only grow stronger between our nations’.
Sanchez, from the Socialist Party, is known to be an outlier among many European leaders, because he wants to improve relations with China, and asked the EU Commission to ‘reconsider’ the tariffs that the EU wants to place on electric vehicles produced in China.
A political leader’s visit to China is always a significant moment, one travels to the world’s second-largest economy, but doing so now means much more.
Since Sanchez left the country, Donald Trump has installed a 90-day pause on tariffs on more than 75 countries, whilst at the same time increasing the tariffs on China to a whopping 125%.
Sanchez, who describes the imposition of tariffs as ‘unjustified’ and ‘harmful’, considers the truce announced by the US administration ‘a gateway to negotiation and agreement between countries’.
The Sanchez government sees Trump’s tariffs as a sign that Spain has to look for other trade partners, including Mercosur, India, and China of course.
The Spanish government’s position on this matter, despite any veiled threats or warnings that may come from the Trump administration, can be summarized as Sanchez advocating for a relationship with China based on openness.
