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.