Bloomberg reported:

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told a closed-door investor summit Tuesday that the tariff standoff with China cannot be sustained by both sides and that the world’s two largest economies will have to find ways to de-escalate.

That de-escalation will come in the very near future, [ wink, wink ] Bessent said during an event hosted by J.P. Morgan Chase in Washington, which wasn’t open to the public or media.

President Donald Trump said he plans to be “very nice” to China in any trade talks and that tariffs will drop if the two countries can reach a deal, a sign he may be backing down from his tough stance on Beijing amid market volatility.

First — and why aren’t more people saying this? — what the hell was the Treasury secretary doing giving a closed-door briefing on a significant policy change that hadn’t yet been officially announced?

Isn’t that a setup for large-scale insider trading? Indeed, attendees at that conference surely made market bets before Bessent’s remarks became public.

And since when are major policy announcements by government officials made off the record to closed private-sector meetings? One even wonders whether Bessent was announcing policy or making it: Did Trump back him up only after the fact?

The content of his remarks aside, what was Bessent even doing at this event? Senior government officials aren’t supposed to be helping investment banks entertain their clients.

Was Bessent paid for his appearance? That would have been inconceivable under any previous administration, but now God knows. Or are we now entering an era in which companies that do favors for Trump and co., either in the form of money or support for their policies, get lucrative insider briefings?