Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said he would let Vice President J.D. Vance "defend himself" after he called Chinese people "peasants."
During a Sunday interview on ABC's This Week program, host Jonathan Karl noted that Vance had recently insulted the Chinese people.
"Can you explain to me what the vice president was saying not long ago when he referred to the Chinese people as peasants?" Karl asked. "This is something that we heard the Chinese say was ignorant and disrespectful."
"I mean, I haven't heard Donald Trump talk that way about the Chinese," the host added.
"No, I'm just going to step back and really just leave the vice president to let him defend himself," Lutnick laughed. "He knows what he meant."
"The government of China assists their businesses to undercut our businesses, drive them out of business, and take that manufacturing over to China," the official continued. "And finally, Donald Trump is standing up to it, saying, look, in order to make it fair for American businesses, we have to put a tariff on China to level the playing field, to take their government out of being a competitor."
