Treasury Secretary Has Blunt Warning for Countries Upset Over Trump Tariffs: 'Take It In'

Wednesday was the “Day of Liberation” that President Donald Trump has been promising, the day he announced reciprocal tariffs on our trading partners around the world in what he says will even the economic playing field.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent weighed in on both CNN and Fox News after the Rose Garden ceremony and urged patience—and restraint. On Fox, he spoke with Special Report’s Bret Baier and doled out three words of advice:

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered a three-word reply on Wednesday to countries looking to respond to the United States’ broad tariffs: "Do not retaliate."
President Donald Trump announced on his self-proclaimed "Liberation Day" a 10% baseline tariff across the board and retaliatory tariffs on some of the country’s closest allies, who he says are taking advantage of the U.S.
Among some of the notable tariffs are 34% on China, 20% on the European Union, 24% on Japan and 32% on Taiwan.
The tariffs on China increased to 54% due to an existing 20% tariff.

Watch:

BREAKING 🚨 Secretary Bessent's has a message for countries hit with reciprocal tariffs:

"Do not retaliate. If you do, there will be escalation”

AMERICA IS OFFICIALLY BACK

pic.twitter.com/h4Mfp2SRii
— MAGA Voice (@MAGAVoice) April 2, 2025

He also warned that countries and leaders thinking of clapping back that they risked “escalation” which would not go well for them:

"My advice to every country right now is do not retaliate. Sit back, take it in, let's see how it goes. Because if you retaliate, there will be escalation," Bessent said Wednesday in an interview on "Special Report" shortly after the announcement. "If you don't retaliate, this is the high-water mark."

Watch: Trump Declares 'Liberation Day in America' in Rose Garden Tariffs EO Event

Bessent also went on CNN and told anchor Kaitlan Collins that the affected countries needed to take a deep breath and think long and hard before doing anything rash:

'Sit back, take a deep breath, don't immediately retaliate. Let's see where this goes, because if you retaliate, that's how we get escalation,' Bessent told CNN.
He ultimately advised other countries that 'doing anything rash would be unwise.'
'A trade war depends on the country. But remember that the history of trade is we are the deficit country. The deficit country has an advantage. They are the surplus countries. The surplus countries traditionally, always lose any kind of trade escalation,' Bessent added.

Kaitlan Collins just tried to trap Scott Bessent on the tariffs, and it didn't work out too well for her.

Kaitlan: "What would you say to people in the auto industry who are worried about that timeline and how quickly that could shift."

Scott: "Buy American."

Kaitlan: "What… pic.twitter.com/AdVYqkxxc1
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) April 3, 2025

Kaitlan: "What about American-made cars and produced cars that are used, maybe being made using foreign-made parts?"
Scott: "I believe the USMCA [United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement] is exempt."

Numerous news outlets are reporting that the stock market crashed after the tariffs announcement, but many buried in their articles that the drops occurred in after-hours trading, which is quite a different animal than official trading hours. Major U.S. exchanges actually ended Wednesday in positive territory. We’ll see if there’s a significant drop Thursday, but to say that's already happened isn’t accurate.

Bessent seems to be all-in with Trump on the tariffs and touted their long-term benefits:

Bessent told Fox News chief political anchor Bret Baier that the goal of the tariffs is to set the stage for long-term economic growth.
"We are putting ourselves back onto a sound trajectory," he said, hitting the Biden administration for "gigantic" government spending.

It’s unknown how the world and the financial markets will react to Trump’s huge announcement. As Bessent advised, we’re all probably going to need to “sit back [and] take a deep breath” because most of us have never seen anything like this before. It’s a round of high-stakes poker—but Americans didn’t vote for Trump because they wanted more of the same.

It’s a whole new ballgame.

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