Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged US trading partners against taking retaliatory steps against President Donald Trump’s new set of retaliatory tariffs.

“I wouldn’t try to retaliate,” Bessent said in an interview Wednesday with Bloomberg Television. “As long as you don’t retaliate this is the high end of the number.”

Bessent spoke shortly after Trump unveiled a 10% universal baseline tariff for many trading partners, with much higher surtaxes on others — including a 34% rate for China and 20% levy on the European Union.

“This is the high end of the number barring retaliation,” Bessent said. “As far as negotiations go — we’ll see.”

While other countries have reached out to Washington to engage on trade talks, the Treasury chief indicated the administration would “let things settle for a while.”

“We’ll see where it goes from here.”