U.S. ‍Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Wednesday (January 28, 2026) he was disappointed by Europe’s decision to strike a ​major trade agreement with India, saying it showed Europe put trade ‌ahead of the interests of the Ukrainian people.

Mr. Bessent told CNBC that Europe ​had been buying refined products made in India with sanctioned Russian oil supplies, and had been unwilling to match higher U.S. tariffs on Indian goods because they were separately negotiating a trade agreement.

The European Union on Tuesday (January 27, 2026) finalised a long-delayed trade deal with India that aims to boost two-way trade and reduce the bloc’s reliance on the United States amid growing global trade tensions.

The deal is expected to double ​EU exports to India by 2032 by eliminating or reducing tariffs on ⁠96.6% of traded goods by value, and will lead to savings of €4 billion ($4.8 billion) in duties for European companies, the EU said.

Asked whether this deal and others among countries excluding the United ​States would threaten the U.S., Mr. Bessent ⁠said, “They should do what’s best for themselves, but I will tell you, I found, I find the Europeans very disappointing.”

He said the deal made it clear why Brussels had balked at joining Washington’s decision to impose 25% tariffs on India last ‌year as part of a push to reduce its purchases of ‌Russian oil.

“The Europeans were unwilling to join us, and it turns out, because they wanted to do this trade deal,” he said.

“So every time ‍you hear a European talk about the importance of the Ukrainian people, remember that they put trade ahead of the Ukrainian people.”

Mr. Bessent last week had signaled the potential removal ‍of the 25% additional U.S. tariffs on India following a sharp reduction in Indian imports of Russian oil.

Also Read |Europe financing ‘war’ against itself by buying Russian oil products from India: Bessent

Mr. Bessent’s disparaging comments about Europe came amid heightened tensions after President Donald Trump threatened to raise tariffs on imports from certain European countries over their opposition to his pursuit of Greenland. That tariff threat was later dropped, but it left many Europeans unsettled and anxious about the future of Transatlantic trade.

U.S. officials remain frustrated that the EU has not enacted the tariff reductions it promised as part of a framework ⁠trade deal reached with Washington in July.

Those concerns were heightened this week when Mr. Trump raised duties on imports from South Korea to 25% ​from 15%, citing slow moves by the country’s parliament to implement a framework trade agreement reached ⁠with Washington last year.

Mr. Bessent defended Mr. Trump’s action, saying it was “helpful to get things moved along”, adding that the South Korean parliament needed to ratify the trade deal.

Mr. Trump on Tuesday (January 27) said he expected the United States ​and South Korea to work out a solution, but he did not elaborate. South Korean officials are ⁠due to arrive in Washington on Wednesday (January 28) for talks with trade officials.

The US imposed 25%tariffs on India for buying Russian oil, but the Europeans signed a trade deal with New Delhi, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said as he emphasised that Europe is financing the “war” against itself by purchasing refined Russian oil products from India.

U.S. President Donald Trump has worked to negotiate a settlement on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Mr. Bessent said, adding that the U.S. has made much bigger sacrifices than the Europeans.

“We have put 25% tariffs on India for buying Russian oil. Guess what happened last week? The Europeans signed a trade deal with India,” Mr. Bessent told ABC News Sunday (January 25, 2026).

“And just to be clear again, the Russian oil goes into India, the refined products come out, and the Europeans buy the refined products. They are financing the war against themselves,” he said, adding that under Trump’s leadership, “we will eventually end” the Russia-Ukraine war.

The Trump administration has imposed 50% tariffs on India, including 25% for Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil.  India and the European Union are set to announce on January 27 the conclusion of negotiations and finalisation of a free trade agreement, aimed at boosting economic ties between the two regions amid disruptions in global trade due to U.S. tariffs. The talks started in 2007.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who is currently in India and was the Chief Guest at the 77th Republic Day celebrations in New Delhi, has termed the EU-India FTA as the “mother of all trade deals”.

The United States on Thursday (January 15, 2026) imposed sanctions on five Iranian officials it accused of ‍being behind the crackdown on protests and warned it was tracking ​Iranian leaders’ funds being wired to banks around ‌the world, as U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration ​increases pressure on Tehran.

Iran protests LIVE on January 15

The U.S. Treasury Department in a statement said it imposed sanctions on the Secretary of the Supreme Council for National Security as well as Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and law enforcement forces commanders, accusing them of being architects of the crackdown.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in a ​video on Thursday (January 15, 2026), said Washington’s message to Iran’s leaders ⁠was clear: “U.S. Treasury knows, that like rats on a sinking ship, you are frantically wiring funds stolen from Iranian families to banks and financial institutions around ​the world. Rest assured, ⁠we will track them and you.”

“But there’s still time, if you choose to join us. As President Trump has said, stop the violence and stand with the people of ‌Iran.”

The unrest in Iran started with protests over ‌soaring prices before turning into one of the biggest challenges to the clerical establishment since the ‍1979 Islamic Revolution. The U.S.-based HRANA rights group says it has so far verified the deaths of 2,435 protesters and 153 ‍government-affiliated individuals. Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene on behalf of protesters in Iran, where the clerical establishment has cracked down hard on nationwide unrest since December 28.

“The United States stands firmly behind the Iranian people in their call for freedom and justice,” Mr. Bessent said in the statement.

“Treasury will use every tool to target those behind the regime’s tyrannical oppression of human ⁠rights.”

The Treasury also imposed sanctions on 18 people it accused of involvement in laundering the proceeds ​of Iranian petroleum and petrochemical sales to foreign markets as part ⁠of “shadow banking” networks of sanctioned Iranian financial institutions.

Thursday’s (January 15, 2026) action is the latest move targeting Tehran since Mr. Trump restored his “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran, which includes efforts to drive its oil exports to zero and help prevent Tehran ⁠from developing a nuclear weapon.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration is prepared to raise tariffs on China if Beijing continues blocking rare earth exports, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned on Sunday (November 2, 2025).

China announced on Thursday it would suspend for one year the restrictions it imposed in October on rare earth materials and technologies, but Mr. Bessent voiced concern that Beijing had not always followed through on its commitments.

“The Chinese have cornered the market [on rare earths], and unfortunately at times they proved to be unreliable partners,” Bessent told Fox News on Sunday.

Such metals are mined in several countries including the United States, but China has a virtual monopoly on processing these metals for industry usability.

The suspension was announced following recent talks between Mr. Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in South Korea.

Some of the export restrictions previously decided by Beijing remain in place.

Following the agreement and the “goodwill” between the leaders of the world’s two largest economies, Mr. Bessent said he hoped “we can depend on them to be more reliable partners.”

If not, “we could threaten the tariffs again,” Mr. Bessent warned, stressing Washington has been prepared to use “maximum leverage.”

“We don’t want to decouple with China, but we’re going to have to de-risk,” he said.

Mr. Bessent also accused previous U.S. governments of being “asleep at the switch” as Beijing spent years putting together its rare earths strategy.

“Now this administration, we’re going to go at warp speed over the next one, two years, and we’re going to get out from under this sword that the Chinese have over us — and they have it over the whole world,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union” talk show.

As part of the announced deal, Washington will reduce the level of tariffs imposed on Chinese exports to the United States by 10%.

The agreement also requires China to take significant measures to stem the flow of fentanyl into the United States, where consumption of the powerful synthetic opioid has caused tens of thousands of deaths.

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, China is by far the largest supplier of fentanyl to the United States.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday (September 16, 2025) he anticipated a final deal on the short-video app TikTok when President Donald Trump speaks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Friday (September 12, 2025).

China had a long list of asks during talks this week in Madrid, Mr. Bessent said. He described the negotiations as fulsome and conducted with great respect.

Also Read | Trump suggests deal reached over the future of TikTok

The two sides said on Monday (September 15, 2025) they have reached a framework agreement after months of talks between the world’s No. 1 and No. 2 economies to defuse a wide-ranging trade war that has unnerved global markets.

Mr. Bessent said Mr. Trump made it clear he would let TikTok, which counts 170 million U.S. users, go dark without a deal to switch to U.S.-controlled ownership. However, Mr. Trump has extended the deadline to reach a deal on the app three times and was expected to do so a fourth time on the upcoming Wednesday (September 17, 2025) deadline.

Details on the commercial terms with new investors need to be ironed out, Mr. Bessent said, declining to elaborate.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday (September 1, 2025) expressed confidence that the Supreme Court will uphold President Donald Trump’s use of a 1977 emergency powers law to impose sweeping tariffs on most trading partners, but said the administration has a backup plan if it does not.

Mr. Bessent told Reuters he was preparing a legal brief for the U.S. solicitor general, who will oversee the government’s appeal to the Supreme Court, that will underscore the urgency of addressing decades of trade imbalances and stopping the flow of deadly fentanyl into the United States.

A divided U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday that most of Donald Trump’s tariffs are illegal, undercutting the Republican president’s use of the levies as a key economic policy tool. The court allowed the tariffs to remain in place through October 14 to give the Trump administration a chance to file an appeal with the Supreme Court.

The 7-4 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., addressed the legality of what Trump calls “reciprocal” tariffs imposed as part of his trade war in April, as well as a separate set of tariffs imposed in February against China, Canada and Mexico aimed at halting imports of fentanyl.

The court’s decision does not affect tariffs issued under other legal authority, such as Mr. Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

Mr. Trump justified both sets of tariffs — as well as more recent levies — under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act. IEEPA gives the president the power to address “unusual and extraordinary” threats during national emergencies.

“I’m confident the Supreme Court will uphold it — will uphold the president’s authority to use IEEPA. And there are lots of other authorities that can be used — not as efficient, not as powerful,” Mr. Bessent said. He spoke to Reuters during a visit to a diner in the Washington suburbs.

One of those authorities, he added, could be Section 338 of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which allows the president to impose tariffs of up to 50% for five months against imports from countries that are found to discriminate against U.S. commerce.

Fentanyl influx

Mr. Bessent said the influx of deadly fentanyl, linked to some 70,000 deaths a year in the United States, was a legitimate reason to call an emergency.

“If this is not a national emergency, what is?” Mr. Bessent said, referring to thousands of drug overdoses linked to fentanyl. “When can you use IEEPA if not for fentanyl?”

He said the brief, to be submitted Tuesday or Wednesday, would focus on the idea that U.S. trade deficits with other countries had been expanding for years and were reaching a tipping point that could lead to far greater consequences.

“We’ve had these trade deficits for years, but they keep getting bigger and bigger,” he said. “We are approaching a tipping point… so preventing a calamity is an emergency.”

Mr. Bessent noted that action by then-President George W. Bush on mortgages might have averted the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, which was triggered by excessive speculation on property values by both homeowners and financial institutions.

‘India fuelling Russian war machine’

Mr. Bessent played down the notion that Mr. Trump’s tariffs were bringing countries like Russia, China and India closer together, dismissing a China-hosted gathering in Shanghai of 20 leaders from non-Western countries as “performative.”

“It happens every year for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,” he said. “It’s more of the same.” Accusing India and Russia of fueling “the Russian war machine”, he said the allies would also step up.

He said the U.S. was making headway in convincing Europe to join Washington’s crackdown on India over its purchases of Russian oil through a 25% additional tariff, but did not comment on whether the U.S. would use similar pressure on China.

China, he said, would struggle to find sufficient markets for its goods outside the United States, Europe, and other English-speaking countries. “They don’t have a high enough per capita income in these other countries,” he said.

India has been a “bit recalcitrant” on trade negotiations with the US, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said.

“That’s aspirational,” Mr. Bessent said on Fox Business on Tuesday (August 12, 2025), responding to a question on wrapping up all the tariffs and trade deals by the end of October.

“But I think we are in a good position. The big trade deals that aren’t done or aren’t agreed – Switzerland is still around, India has been a bit recalcitrant,” he said, adding that U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and teams of lawyers “are busy papering all this over”.

“So I think we will have agreed on substantial terms with all the substantial countries. And as I’ve been saying for a long time, the President’s (Donald Trump) doing peace deals, trade deals, tax deals,” he added.

Also Read | ‘Not until we get it resolved’: Trump indicates pause in trade talks over Russian oil imports

Even as trade negotiations between India and the U.S. were ongoing, Mr. Trump imposed tariffs totalling 50% on India, including 25% for Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil, which will come into effect from August 27.

Responding to the tariffs, the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi has said that the targeting of India is “unjustified and unreasonable”.

“Like any major economy, India will take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interests and economic security,” it said.

Last week’s announcement of Mr. Trump’s executive order imposing the additional 25% tariffs on India came at a time when a team from the U.S. is scheduled to visit India from August 25 for the sixth round of negotiations for the proposed bilateral trade agreement.

The two countries are aiming to conclude the first phase of the pact by fall (October-November) this year.