After Trump appointed Howard Lutnick as Commerce Secretary and Kevin Warsh was clearly being groomed as Powell's replacement at the Fed, it was just a matter of time before the most important appointment in the Trump admin was made. That happened late on Friday when president-elect Donald Trump nominated Scott Bessent to lead the Department of the Treasury, ending days of speculation after other names emerged as competitors to the reported favorite.
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| Scott Bessent speaks at the National Conservative Conference in Washington |
“Scott is widely respected as one of the world’s foremost international investors and geopolitical and economic strategists. Scott’s story is that of the American Dream,” Trump said in a statement on the nomination.
Others contenders for the role included Howard Lutnick, the chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and BGC Partners. He co-chairs the Trump–Vance transition team, which is in charge of selecting administration candidates, vetting personnel, and crafting policy. Lutnick was ultimately chosen on Nov. 19 to lead the Department of Commerce.
In his statement on Bessent’s nomination, Trump said that economic policy under his administration would maintain the U.S. dollar’s reserve currency status, fortify the United States’s position as the world’s strongest economy, and invigorate the private sector.
“As a lifelong champion of Main Street America and American industry, Scott will support my policies that will drive U.S. competitiveness, and stop unfair trade imbalances, work to create an economy that places growth at the forefront, especially through our coming world energy dominance,” Trump said.
The president-elect also noted Bessent’s deep family roots in South Carolina, saying that he belongs to a historic French Huguenot Church, which members of his family founded in the 1680s, in the port city of Charleston.
Like his predecessors, Bessent will now oversee a vast portfolio to employ the president’s economic agenda.
As the Epoch Times notes, the two immediate issues Bessent will grapple with will be averting a default as the national debt ceiling limit will expire on Jan. 1, 2025, and extending the Trump-era Tax Cuts and Jobs Act due to expire at the end of next year.
More importantly, Bessent will also be tasked with the delicate, if not conflicting, job of championing Trump's trade proposals, including across-the-board tariffs, on one hand, while keeping the debt and deficit in check and preventing bond yields and the dollar from rising too high, too fast, as an even more rapid tightening in financial conditions will surely tip the US economy into recession.
Bessent previously told CNBC he preferred trade levies to be imposed gradually to ensure higher prices appear over time and allow disinflationary policies to offset tariffs. Additionally, the hedge fund manager has professed support for broad-based tariffs that he believes are “more effective than microeconomic interventions like industrial policy that generally rely on the government to pick winners and losers,” as he wrote in an opinion published by The Economist in October.
Cryptocurrency could be another area that Bessent - and Trump who has transformed from a rabid crypto skeptic into one of the most ardent fans of bitcoin - will home in on.
“I have been excited about the president’s
embrace of crypto and I think it fits very well with the Republican
Party, crypto is about freedom and the crypto economy is here to stay,”
he stated in an interview with Fox News earlier this year.
Here are the full comments on #crypto and #bitcoin Bessent made on @FoxBusiness in July. https://t.co/3O09jKZLJD pic.twitter.com/ggeLHs5JVc
— Eleanor Terrett (@EleanorTerrett) November 12, 2024
If confirmed by the Senate in January, Bessent will succeed Janet Yellen. Steven Mnuchin served as Trump’s Treasury secretary during his first term.
Following Trump’s victory earlier this month, Bessent wrote in The Wall Street Journal that the financial markets were celebrating “the Trump 2.0 economic vision.”
“Markets are signaling expectations of higher growth, lower volatility and inflation, and a revitalized economy for all Americans,” Bessent wrote.
Bessent has received support from several prominent Wall Street individuals, including Kyle Bass, the founder of the Dallas-based Hayman Capital Management. “He has a masterful knowledge of the architecture of the global financial system and its players,” Bass told The Epoch Times.
The hedge fund investor, Bass said, has invested across the globe, formed relationships with global finance ministers and central bankers, and understands financial markets. “Scott is by far the best candidate for the job as Secretary,” Bass said.
Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller recently told Axios that Bessent is “not only a market participant but very fluent and comfortable in academic circles.”
The announcement of the Treasury secretary role was one of the most eagerly awaited decisions among Trump’s cabinet picks, sparking a wide range of reactions on social media platform X.
Eric Wallerstein, chief markets strategist at Yardeni, praised Scott Bessent, stating, “Bessent is the only candidate who specifically addresses Treasury’s faulty debt management strategy. the best candidate for the job.”
Even warhawk neocon Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) expressed support on X, saying, Trump’s economic agenda is “in good hands with Scott Bessent.”
“He is a great combination of being academically gifted and real world tested,” Graham wrote.