Bloomberg Talks
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer Talks Hormuz, China Talks, Trade Tariffs
31 Mar 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. The conflict in the Middle East whipsawing crude prices and creating uncertainty for global trade partners. Anne-Marie joins us from Washington now with a special guest. Anne-Marie.
Good morning, John. That's right. An individual who just met with a number of the U.S. trade partners at a WTO meeting in Cameroon is Ambassador Jameson Greer, the United States Trade Representative. Ambassador Greer, good morning and thank you so much for joining me.
Good morning. Great to be here.
So you just got back from meeting with a number of trade partners. And at the moment, global trade is upended by what's going on in the Strait of Hormuz. Did you have an update to give American trading partners about the flow of trade through that critical waterway?
Well, right now, I think the thing to understand is that the United States is generally insulated from a lot of the supply chain effects when it comes to direct commodities and things like that. For a lot of that, we have domestic sourcing. We have sourcing from our partners to the north and south of us and other places. But obviously, we're aware that this has an impact in other areas.
In other countries, particularly in Asia, we know that their supplies are tight. And so we're watching that really closely. When I was meeting with all of them, this was not particularly high on their agenda of things to discuss with me because we were meeting for other reasons.
But we're monitoring the situation given that the supplies of commodities coming out of the Gulf can affect our trading partners a lot of ways.
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Chapter 2: How is the US insulated from supply chain effects in the Strait of Hormuz?
They've talked about Iran. I assume that they'll talk about these things again. With respect to your question, is there going to be a delay in the meeting, I haven't heard talk about that, neither internally. I didn't hear that from my Chinese counterpart when I talked to him last week.
When it comes to the tariffs right now, there's Section 301 tariffs that you're looking into when it comes to China. We've seen China actually have their own announcement that they're going to investigate U.S. companies.
This tit-for-tat we might see in the trade between Beijing and Washington, back to where we were almost what it feels like a year ago, do you think that's going to hinder the U.S. from getting back to the 20 percent level they were at before IEPA was struck down?
I don't think so. When you look back to the Busan agreements, the agreements we achieved with the Chinese last year, we were seeking stability. We were seeking to achieve a level of tariff application on one side and a flow of rare earth minerals and things from the other side. Both sides want stability. Both sides want to see continuity.
The Chinese know that the United States is trying to control for our giant trade deficit we've had with China for a long time, which went down by 30 percent last year, by the way. So I don't think it's going toā
China's imports to other countries went up, and then those countries are importing to the United States. Don't you have an issue with trans-shipment at the moment?
So there's always been an issue with trans-shipment, but when you look at our shipments from third countries outside of China since April, right, since Liberation Day, That deficit has gone down by 17%. So while there may be some trans-shipment, overall our trade deficit is going down. It's going down with China. It's going down with the rest of the world. It's going exactly the right direction.
At the same time, wages are going up in America. Productivity is going up.
Do you think you're going to get to the 20% level?
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Chapter 3: What updates did Jamieson Greer provide to American trading partners?
He's going to protect our producers so we can continue to have increased production in the U.S., increased wages here.
If China plays hardball, though, not just with their own investigations, but potentially bringing rare earths back into the foray. I know they have basically till October, there's a deal on the table. Potentially then, would you look to maybe decrease the tariff level?
Well, from our perspective, we're looking for stability. We're trying to achieve, we're trying to get the trade deficit reduced. We're trying to increase manufacturing in the United States. And we're trying to increase real wages. And all of that is happening. So we don't see a need to change our policy. The Chinese want stability. We want stability.
I actually see a positive agenda with China going forward where we learn to manage our trade with each other, where we pick the kinds of things we want to be selling to each other, things that are mostly non-sensitive to avoid some of the national security elements that prove challenging in negotiations. I see stability with China over the next year.
When it comes to this extension on rare earths, are you going to need one in October? Or will you think the United States is in a place where we don't need an extension?
Well, we've made a lot of progress. We have a few months, so I think we'll assess that down the road. You know we have Project Vault, where we're stockpiling a lot of critical minerals and rare earths. We have new projects in the United States to mine, process, and manufacture rare earths, including permanent magnets that we need for different motors.
We're working with our counterparts and our trading partners, Australia, the EU, Japan, Mexico, to find projects we can do together to increase supply chain security.
How much will rare earths be on the table of this discussion with the president and Xi Jinping in May?
So when we met in Paris with our Chinese counterparts a couple of weeks ago, we talked about rare earths. The process with the Chinese is working fairly well. There are a few things here and there where we highlighted that we didn't feel like we were getting rare earths in a timely fashion. And we highlighted that to our partners. They took note of that and have it under consideration.
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Chapter 4: What is the significance of the upcoming US-China leaders' meeting?
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