By David Lawder
WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (Reuters) - The Trump administration aims to have finance leaders from the Group of 20 major economies agree next week on steps to boost economic growth, reduce global imbalances and tackle sovereign debt challenges while pressing them to cut off Iran's economic lifelines, a senior U.S. Treasury official said on Thursday.
After shunning the South Africa-led G20 process last year, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will host G20 finance ministers and central bank
governors on Monday and Tuesday in the Blue Ridge Mountains city of Asheville, North Carolina.
The Treasury official said that the Trump administration has been focused on addressing global trade imbalances to benefit American workers and leveling the playing field for American firms.
"And so we're really focusing on this head on in our G20 discussions to ensure that our economies compete on productivity, innovation, and investment, and not on just sort of policies that push excess production and excess capacity into global markets," the official said, echoing terms often used by the Trump administration to describe China's export-oriented economic model.
The official said that other G20 economies have seen "tremendous amounts of dumping on their shores" as the U.S. has tightened its trade barriers, without naming China directly as the source of these goods.
The official said that the U.S.-led growth discussions in the G20 meeting will focus on supporting resilient supply chains for critical resources, including energy, and on supporting private-sector innovators who drive productivity growth. G20 discussions will include business leaders to discuss barriers to investment, innovation, and productivity, and regulatory reforms.
Asked about how Bessent will address G20 finance leaders' concerns about rising U.S. debt and bond yields, the official said that bond yields, elevated since the start of the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran in late February, would fall as inflation cools over time. Nonetheless, the Treasury was focused on bringing longer-maturity bond yields lower, as evidenced by Bessent's move to increase buyback sizes of 10- to 30-year Treasuries, the official added.
After the Treasury warned countries on Monday that they face secondary U.S. sanctions if they fail to cut remaining business ties to Iran, the official said that Bessent would be making a "strong statement" to G20 officials that they must adhere to the U.S. sanctions campaign against Iran if they want to continue to do business in the dollar-based, Western financial system.
"I expect that this will come up in every single bilateral meeting that the secretary is hosting with our G20 counterparties over the coming days," the official said. "This is a critical aspect right now of our economic campaign against Iran, and so we want to ensure that there's consistency across all of the G20 members."
(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by Chris Reese and Stephen Coates)
