Scott Bessent says China could lose 10 million jobs 'very quickly' if tariffs don't drop

[Zorro]

Source: Yahoo Finance

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Tuesday said the "onus" is on China to bring down its tariffs as he outlined how many jobs the world's second-largest economy stands to lose in a trade war.

If the US keeps tariffs in place at the current level of 145%, China could lose 10 million jobs "very quickly," Bessent said during a press conference at the White House, citing outside statistics.

Even if the US were to lower tariffs somewhat, China still stands to lose 5 million jobs, he added.

"So remember that we are the deficit country," Bessent said. "They sell almost five times more goods to us than we sell to them. So the onus will be on them to take off these tariffs. They're unsustainable for them."

Read more: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/scott-bessent-says-china-could-lose-10-million-jobs-very-quickly-if-tariffs-dont-drop-143718347.html

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The Trump administration is speeding down the road to FAFO.

[roscoeroscoe]

1. Like Mao said...

In the first battle, we'll have 50 million troops surrender...

[Prairie Gates]

2. Within the next two weeks, in fact - just in time for Trump's infrastructure and health care plans

[republianmushroom]

3. Scott, how many jobs will be lost in the US ?

Last edited Tue Apr 29, 2025, 01:35 PM - Edit history (1)

UPS laying off 20,000 workers due to Trump TAX tariffs
UPS has announced that an anticipated drop in Amazon deliveries will impact the shipping company's workforce. The company announced Tuesday it was shedding 20,000 workers, CBS News reported.

https://www.rawstory.com/ups-amazon/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ups-job-cuts-layoffs-amazon-shipments-stock-price/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7e&linkId=808219939

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220278759

[durablend]

11. He doesn't care about that!

And if they do lose their jobs they were useless anyway

[republianmushroom]

13. I don't believe he knows. Just getting press.

[VeryProgressive]

4. China is more resilient than the US

Even if true, that’s a much smaller percentage of their population than it is for the US. They will be able to withstand the pain, but modern America has become spoiled. Bessent is a moron and/or liar.

[Justice matters.]

22. He doesn't know they sell to the rest of the world...

China's 2022 Exports in Billion US Dollar Values (rounded up)

United States: 501

Rest of the world: 3,088

And he thinks they won't profit more from the rest of the world reducing they imports from the US due to his orange menace stupid tariffs?

How a more incompetent lying idiot can he be?

[subterranean]

27. The rest of the world can't fully absorb their exports to the U.S.

But I'm sure China is already talking with other countries to make trade deals to partially offset the loss of the U.S. market. And Trump is doing his best to make China seem like a more stable and reliable trade partner.

[Stonealone]

28. Just another thought!

We keep hearing about 'short term pain for long term gain' from the Orange Fascist Dick and its followers. Okay. Then what??? Sure you bring all the jobs back to America (or what's left of it). You keep telling yourself and us 'That THEY (other countries) are losing millions of jobs and millions of dollars. SO WHAT??? AMERICA FIRST!!
By then we will have significantly pissed off the rest of the world, with our BEAUTIFUL TARIFFS, that the rest of the world may no long want or need anything that America is now producing back home again, in America! And of course, those BEAUTIFUL TARIFFS will keep most, if not all, of the items produced in other countries from ever entering America.
But everyone else will be happily trading with everyone else. Just not with America.
I love it, when my MAGAots friends argue with me about how great America will be when we reverse the manufacturing job losses. My first response is "What will their wages be, here in America?" and the MAGAots always say "Enough to live on".
My second question is "who's going to buy our expensive stuff?" And they say "the same people who are buying it now!" They don't see the Dead-End street that they are going down. No trade means No trade!
The only way American products are going to be exported is if the price of the said item is competitive with like items in those foreign markets. And of course, with all those BEAUTIFUL TARIFFS, that's never going to happen.
Of course the tariffs could be reduced or eliminated all together. But still the cost of Made in America products will still be higher.
The only ways around this is to lower productions costs! And my MAGAots friends really don't seem to grasp that point!
Because that means: 1) lower labor cost (What?? How can we live on those wages?) 2) Lower supply costs (Okay, no problem) 3) Lower overhead costs ( Sure, every CEO/Owner/Stockholder will gladly give up profits and high returns. LOL!! NOT!) or 4) you ship the manufacturing jobs overseas, where labor cost, supply cost and overhead cost are less expensive.
Only then, do my MAGAots friends start to understand the basics of ECON 101!

[More_Cowbell]

5. "Which side is more willing to endure hardship ..."

Bowen Yang as China's trade minister on SNL a few weeks ago:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/eWvv6hZPRhU

[johnnyplankton]

6. My God he's a fucking moron...

[patphil]

7. I don't think he understands the Asian mentality.

They know the US can't survive for long without Chinese goods flowing into our country. Virtually every phase of our economy is reliant on products made in China.
We're already seeing a huge drop in traffic at the West Coast ports. It's going to get worse.
After all the containers that are already in the US empty out into the supply chain, the people will see that it's not just about price, it's about availability.

[BidenRocks]

33. Every container will be needed

as housing for the newly homeless.

[Wiz Imp]

8. This is one of the most stupid arguments ever.

Why would China lose jobs? Presumably because the tariffs are too high that people in the US will no longer want to buy products from China because of the cost. So what happens then? Imports from China are reduced, meaning tariff revenues are greatly reduced. How will the US collect trillions of dollars in tariffs if imports are reduced? The only way the US could possibly collect trillions in tariffs to begin with is if the tariff rate were over 100% on ALL imports. The higher the tariff rate, the lower the sales, the less money collected by the US treasury.

Tell me again how that benefits the US?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

30. tRump is claiming $2 billion tariff taxes per day. It is more like 500 million. Before trade contraction.

$ 500 million a day is about $ 183 billion a year. US income tax revenue is estimated to be about $ 2,500 billion for 2024. It will never replace income tax.

The economic genius of the stable is a horse's ass.

[JBTaurus83]

9. Wait until

China calls our debt due.

[Tarzanrock]

10. A board certified Idiot!

What's 10 million jobs in a population of 1.411 Billion people? Answer: 0.0070921985. A board-certified Idiot is running the US Treasury Dept.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. China has 1.4 billion people

"10,000,000" = 0.71% of their population. That same number is about 3.03% of OUR population (where we have about 1/4 of their population).

That is a drop in the bucket for them if it is even any kind of "reality" (which such a scenario is NOT).

THEY OWN THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION. WE DON'T (by design of "free trade", "cheap labor", and "greed" ).

[angrychair]

18. It's even worse than that

China's workforce as of 2023 is 773 million people. Should note that there working age population is twice as large as the entire population of the US.
10 million women be 1.3% of their workforce but I have serious doubts even that is true.
All that being said even that would have zero impact on that Chinese economy.

[BumRushDaShow]

20. Yes

That was basically my point. Even IF such a "loss of jobs" happened there, it wouldn't have much of an impact and Bessent forgets that they are selling their stuff GLOBALLY, not just here in the U.S. Their labor costs are a fraction of ours, which is why we "used them" in the first place.

This is what happens when you take a "dumb as a rock and out of touch hedge fund manager" and put them in charge of the Treasury.

He shames his original predecessor.

[Miguelito Loveless]

14. So that's what

less than 1% of their populace.

And how many jobs will we lose here?

[Initech]

15. Gee, you think maybe these stupid tariffs were an extremely terrible idea?

Turn off the ass kissing propaganda channels and think for yourself!

[Old Crank]

16. How many port jobs will be idle next week?

In the US?
How many trucking jobs will be on furlough after the ports stop unloading the end of the week?

[roamer65]

36. Think I read about 8 million are employed in the logistics industry.

If Smoot-Hawley 2.0 continues indefinitely, we should see 8-9 pct U3 unemployment by somewhere in early 2026.

[Midnight Writer]

17. Getting into a labor war of attrition with a dictatorship that has four times our population is insane.

China can outlast us easily.

[BaronChocula]

19. Just a little potboiler soundbite

that the cult of trolls can spout on farcebook until they realize again the words they parrot mean nothing.

[NoMoreRepugs]

21. Bessent is one ignorant rich guy isn't he??

[wolfie001]

24. He knows he's wrong, but licking tRUMP'S shoes makes more sense to him than a coherent trade policy

[ToxMarz]

23. I think China can ,and is more willing to, withstand this than Americans

This country WILL back down. We may have more cushion to absord it at first, but the more you have to lose, the more it hurts. We clearly have the the furthest to fall, and we are snowflakes when it comes to sacrifice. We likes our stuff too much.

[nowforever]

25. This flawed reasoning

China doesn't need car mats or F150's what else do we manufacture. They buy food, Boeing, some high end chips and our waste wood and paper. We engaged them 50 years ago to become our producers and they complied. They control a major share of raw materials and have built a manufacturing sector that dwarfs ours. We our cutting our scientific research and destroying our premiere academic centers. At least Trump can take credit for having the largest collection of incompetents to ever staff an administration. We are on the Titanic the iceberg has been spotted and the Orange captain says head right for it we are low on ice.

[C_U_L8R]

26. Thuganomics.

Mean and stupid is no way to go through life.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

29. Bessent keeps pushing the "five times" canard. It is far from the whole story.

China can export that "five times" around the globe.

The US can't export its stuff that went to China. They can't export because the US erected tariff taxes against the whole world and they got retaliated against.

So instead of 1 vs 5 loss, it becomes more like 1 vs 0 loss. Practically speaking it won't be quite that extreme. Let's say it is more like 0.8 vs 2 lost business. China's population is about 4 times US. So the pain is more like 0.8 vs 0.5 lost, on a per capita basis.

Conclusion, the US is likely to experience about 40% more pain per capita than China. Factor in that the Chinese have a lot more experience enduring societal pain, and the final conclusion is: Bessent is full of shit.

[Tarzanrock]

31. Bessent always reminds me of ...

... a brash, "one-legged" braggadocio, loudly and obnoxiously blustering about how easy it is to win an "ass kicking" contest.

[delisen]

32. Meanwhile China sent back Boeing planes

and just recently Boeing was counting on sales to China for decades to come.

[roamer65]

34. 10 million are easily employed in war production.

They will borrow that page from the American playbook.

[IbogaProject]

35. More to join the military

This is so stupid.