USTR Greer, when asked about what US Treasury Secretary Bessent may say later, says US President Trump is comfortable with using all levers at his disposal, remarks via CNBC

USTR Greer, when asked about what US Treasury Secretary Bessent may say later, says US President Trump is comfortable with using all levers at his disposal, remarks via CNBC.

Pre-briefing remarks of this kind from a USTR ahead of a Treasury Secretary appearance follow a familiar sequence in trade-heavy episodes: an official signals maximum-optionality language first, and the subsequent set-piece remarks then either sharpen or soften it. The phrase 'all levers' is deliberately non-specific, spanning tariffs, export controls, investment restrictions, and procurement tools, and in past cycles the market-relevant distinction has been whether such language precedes an actionable measure (new tariff schedules, entity list additions, sector-specific duties) or functions as negotiating leverage ahead of talks. Greer and Bessent have each used escalatory framing as posture before; the pattern has been that headline risk concentrates in the concrete follow-on rather than the rhetoric itself, with retaliation timing from the counterpart the usual second leg. Worth noting is the channel, not the adjective: tariff escalation transmits through goods sectors, import-cost pass-through, and the bilateral FX pair of the targeted economy, while export-control levers transmit through the specific technology and industrial supply chains named. The immediate tell is what Bessent actually says and whether any measure carries a date or is left as a threat.