Bessent warns China over rare earth minerals and AI model IP theft

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview on Thursday that he expects economic growth to pick up later this year with core inflation trending lower, while he warned that there have been growing tensions with China over artificial intelligence and rare earths. Bessent spoke with FOX Business’ Edward Lawrence following Thursday’s release of the initial estimate of second quarter GDP growth, which showed GDP slowed to 1.5% annualized growth from 2.1% in the first quarter. The Treasury secretary said that the GDP “number is very noisy because a lot of that was very technical,” explaining that releases from the…