Bessent’s Blockade: Trump’s Strategy to Cut China Off From the Global Economy

The Real Agenda: Isolation, Not Negotiation While the usual cast of pundits frames the Trump administration’s latest tariff moves as mere brinksmanship, a deeper and more coordinated effort is unfolding—one designed to isolate China economically, and in doing so, reassert U.S. control over the levers of global commerce. At the center of this effort is Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a man who didn’t come to Washington to tweak policy—he came to cripple America’s chief economic adversary. The White House, with Trump again at the helm, is no longer merely slapping tariffs on Beijing. It’s now demanding that the rest of the world pick a side. As Trump bluntly put it this week: “We may want countries to choose between us…