Bessent, Scott

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    Inside Trump’s Reversal on Tariffs: From ‘Be Cool!’ to ‘Getting Yippy’

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    Economic turmoil, particularly a rapid rise in government bond yields, caused President Trump to reverse course on the steep levies.For the past week, President Trump has been urging calm in the face of the financial chaos that he created and resisting calls for him to rethink his approach.“I know what the hell I’m doing,” he told Republicans on Tuesday as the massive tariffs he had imposed sent global markets into a tailspin. “BE COOL!” he said in a social media post on Wednesday morning. “Everything is going to work out well.”At 9:37 a.m. Wednesday, the president was still bullish on his policy, posting on Truth Social: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!”But in the end, it was the markets that got him to reverse course.The economic turmoil, particularly a rapid rise in government bond yields, caused Mr. Trump to blink on Wednesday afternoon and pause his “reciprocal” tariffs for most countries for the next 90 days, according to four people with direct knowledge of the president’s decision.Asked to explain the decision, Mr. Trump told reporters: “Well, I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line. They were getting yippy, you know, they were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid.”Behind the scenes, senior members of Mr. Trump’s team had feared a financial panic that could spiral out of control and potentially devastate the economy. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and others on the president’s team, including Vice President JD Vance, had been pushing for a more structured approach to the trade conflict that would focus on isolating China as the worst actor while still sending a broader message that Mr. Trump was serious about cracking down on trade imbalances.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Officials Point to Outreach on Tariffs in a Bid to Calm Markets

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      President Trump’s top trade official defended the administration’s aggressive tariff moves on Tuesday, arguing before a Senate committee that the U.S. economy is facing “a moment of drastic, overdue change” after decades of being propped up by the financial sector and government spending.The remarks by Jamieson Greer, the United States trade representative, came as the Trump administration faced blowback from trading partners, businesses and investors over Mr. Trump’s approach. The president’s moves this month to impose a 10 percent global tariff and steep “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of countries have already triggered a trade war with China and caused other countries to draw up their own retaliation plans. Economists now consider a recession increasingly likely.Mr. Trump has dismissed those concerns and said he will not back away from his trade agenda, which he says is necessary to return manufacturing and industrial production to the United States. He and his economic advisers have claimed that countries are clamoring to make new trade agreements with the United States and to lower their tariffs and other trade barriers.In a social media post on Tuesday, Mr. Trump described a call with South Korea’s acting president, Han Duck-soo, about trade and tariffs and that South Korean officials were heading to the United States for talks. He also expressed optimism that a trade war with China could be averted.“China also wants to make a deal, badly, but they don’t know how to get it started,” Mr. Trump wrote. “We are waiting for their call. It will happen!”Mr. Greer said in his prepared remarks that nearly 50 countries have approached him to discuss how to “achieve reciprocity on trade.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump apuesta a que EE. UU. tolerará una recesión a fin de revivir la industria manufacturera

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      El presidente ofrece razones para imponer aranceles, como los ingresos, la influencia sobre los competidores y la creación de empleo. Pero el pasado sugiere una historia más compleja.Las guerras comerciales simultáneas del presidente Donald Trump con Canadá, México, China y la Unión Europea equivalen a una enorme apuesta económica y política: que los estadounidenses soporten meses o años de penuria económica a cambio de la lejana esperanza de reindustrializar el corazón de Estados Unidos.Es enormemente arriesgado. En los últimos días, Trump ha reconocido, a pesar de todas sus seguras predicciones de campaña de que “vamos a tener un auge como nunca antes hemos tenido”, que Estados Unidos puede dirigirse hacia una recesión, impulsada por su programa económico. Pero, en público y en privado, ha estado argumentando que “una ligera perturbación” en la economía y los mercados es un pequeño precio a pagar por traer de vuelta a Estados Unidos los puestos de trabajo en la industria manufacturera.Sus socios políticos más cercanos están redoblando la estrategia. “La política económica del presidente Trump es sencilla”, escribió el vicepresidente JD Vance en las redes sociales el lunes. “Si inviertes y creas empleo en Estados Unidos, serás recompensado. Reduciremos las normativas y los impuestos. Pero si construyes fuera de Estados Unidos, estarás solo”.La última vez que Trump intentó algo así, durante su primer mandato, fue un fracaso. En 2018 impuso aranceles del 25 por ciento al acero y del 10 por ciento al aluminio, sosteniendo que estaba protegiendo la seguridad nacional de Estados Unidos y que, en última instancia, los aranceles crearían más puestos de trabajo en Estados Unidos. Los precios subieron y se produjo un aumento temporal de unos 5000 puestos de trabajo en todo el país. Durante la pandemia, se levantaron algunos de los aranceles, y hoy la industria emplea aproximadamente al mismo número de estadounidenses que entonces.Sin embargo, lo más preocupante fue la serie de estudios posteriores que demostraron que el país perdió decenas de miles de puestos de trabajo —más de 75.000, según un estudio— en las industrias que dependían de las importaciones de acero y aluminio. La producción por hora de los fabricantes de acero estadounidenses también había descendido, mientras que la productividad de la industria manufacturera en general en Estados Unidos aumentó.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Which Interest Rate Should You Care About?

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      The Fed’s short-term rates matter, but the main action now is in the 10-year Treasury market, which influences mortgages, credit cards and much more, our columnist says.Watch out for interest rates.Not the short-term rates controlled by the Federal Reserve. Barring an unforeseen financial crisis, they’re not going anywhere, especially not after the jump in inflation reported by the government on Wednesday.Instead, pay attention to the 10-year Treasury yield, which has been bouncing around since the election from about 4.8 to 4.2 percent. That’s not an unreasonable level over the last century or so.But it’s much higher than the 2.9 percent average of the last 20 years, according to FactSet data. At its upper range, that 10-year yield may be high enough to dampen the enthusiasm of many entrepreneurs and stock investors and to restrain the stock market and the economy.That’s a problem for the Trump administration. So the new Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has stated outright what is becoming an increasingly evident reality. “The president wants lower rates,” Mr. Bessent said in an interview with Fox Business. “He and I are focused on the 10-year Treasury.”Treasuries are the safe and steady core of many investment portfolios. They influence mortgages, credit cards, corporate debt and the exchange rate for the dollar. They are also the standard by which commercial, municipal and sovereign bonds around the world are priced.What’s moving those Treasury rates now is bond traders’ assessments of the economy — including the Trump administration’s on-again, off-again policies on tariffs, as well as its actions on immigration, taxes, spending and much more.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Argues That Courts Cannot Block Musk’s Team From Treasury Systems

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      Lawyers for the Trump administration argued late Sunday that a court order blocking Elon Musk’s aides from entering the Treasury Department’s payment and data systems impinged on the president’s absolute powers over the executive branch, which they argued the courts could not usurp.The filing by the administration came in response to a lawsuit filed Friday night by 19 attorneys general, led by New York’s Letitia James, who had won a temporary pause on Saturday. The lawsuit said the Trump administration’s policy of allowing appointees and “special government employees” access to these systems, which contain sensitive information such as bank details and social security numbers, was unlawful.Members of Mr. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which is not actually a department, have been combing through the databases to find expenditures to cut. The lawsuit says the initiative challenges the Constitution’s separation of powers, under which Congress determines government spending.A U.S. district judge in Manhattan, Paul A. Engelmayer, on Saturday ordered any such officials who had been granted access to the systems since Jan. 20 to “destroy any and all copies of material downloaded from the Treasury Department’s records and systems.”Judge Engelmayer said in an emergency order that the officials’ access heightened the risk of leaks and of the systems becoming more vulnerable than before to hacking. He set a hearing in the case for Friday.Federal lawyers defending Mr. Trump — as well as the Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, and the Treasury Department — called the order “markedly overboard” and said the court should dismiss the injunction, or at least modify his order.They argued that the order violated the Constitution by ignoring the separation of powers and severing the executive branch’s right to appoint its own employees. The restriction, they wrote, “draws an impermissible and anti-constitutional distinction” between civil servants and political appointees working in the Treasury Department.The filing followed warning shots over the weekend. Vice President JD Vance declared that the courts and judges aren’t allowed “to control the executive’s legitimate power,” although American courts have long engaged in the practice of judicial review.On Saturday, Mr. Trump called the ruling by Judge Engelmayer a “disgrace” and said that “No judge should, frankly, be allowed to make that kind of a decision.”This is a developing story and will be updated. More

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      Trump Orders Treasury to Halt Minting New Pennies to Cut Waste

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      President Trump said on Sunday night that he had ordered the Treasury secretary to stop producing new pennies, a move that he said would help reduce unnecessary government spending.“Let’s rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it’s a penny at a time,” he said in a post on Truth Social. He characterized the production of pennies, which “literally cost us more than 2 cents” each, as wasteful.This is a developing story. Please check here for updates. More

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      Musk Team’s Treasury Access Raises Security Fears, Despite Judge’s Ordered Halt

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      A federal judge’s order that Elon Musk’s team temporarily cease boring into the Treasury Department’s payment systems raises a far larger question: whether what Elon Musk has labeled the Department of Government Efficiency is creating a major cyber and national security vulnerability.The activities of Mr. Musk’s government cost-cutting effort, U.S. District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer said in his order on Saturday, risk “the disclosure of sensitive and confidential information” and render the Treasury’s systems “more vulnerable than before to hacking.”It is a risk that cybersecurity experts have been sounding alarms over in the past 10 days, as Mr. Musk’s band of young coders demanded access to the Treasury’s innermost systems. That access was ultimately granted by Scott Bessent, the newly confirmed Treasury secretary.But other than vague assurances that the new arrivals at the Treasury’s door had proper clearances, there was no description of how their work would be secured — and plenty of reason to believe that it would make it easier for Chinese and Russian intelligence services to target the Treasury’s systems.That was the central argument made by 19 attorneys general as they sought a temporary restraining order to get Mr. Musk’s workers out of the Treasury systems. And Judge Engelmayer endorsed it on Saturday, limiting access to existing Treasury officials until a hearing next week in front of a different federal judge.The government has maintained that Mr. Musk’s team has been limited to reviewing “read-only” data in the Treasury Department’s systems, though the administration is now placing appointees in positions where they could do much more.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Are Trump’s Tariffs Inevitable?

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      World leaders and C.E.O.s are struggling to convince President-elect Donald Trump to shift his position on imposing new levies against America’s trade partners and its rivals.Advisers for Donald Trump are telling businesses to take the president-elect at his word on tariffs.Doug Mills/The New York TimesUnyielding on tariffs Investors appear largely unfazed by President-elect Donald Trump’s tough talk on tariffs, with the S&P 500 up more than 5 percent since Election Day.But world leaders and C.E.O.s are worried he could disrupt global trade and pummel profits — and feel they’re making little headway in warning him of the consequences.Companies have stepped up their lobbying to persuade Trump to go easy on tariffs, according to The Wall Street Journal. The president-elect warned last month that he would impose 25 percent levies on the country’s biggest trading partners, Canada and Mexico, if they didn’t tighten their borders and stem the flow of illegal migration to the U.S.In subsequent social media posts, he went after China and BRICS countries, too.Trump’s team is warning businesses to take him at his word on tariffs, The Journal reports. That suggests that Trump, who has called tariffs “the most beautiful word in the dictionary,” isn’t merely using tariff warnings as an opening salvo in trade negotiations.It also calls into question how much say Jamieson Greer, Scott Bessent, Howard Lutnick and Marco Rubio — Trump’s picks for trade representative, and to run the Treasury, Commerce and State departments — will have in shaping Trump’s trade policy if his mind is already made up.Trump conceded that he “can’t guarantee” tariffs won’t hit consumers hard. That’s a concern among economists and big companies such as Walmart and Costco, who fear that levies could lead to price rises. This earnings season, analysts have been peppering corporate leaders about how tariffs might affect their businesses.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Scott Bessent, Trump’s Pick for Treasury Secretary, Doesn’t Fit the President-Elect’s Loyalist Mold

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      A hedge-fund titan who worked for George Soros. A deep-rooted Southerner with a fondness for high-end real estate. A gay man, married with children. Who is Scott Bessent?A capitalist with a soft spot for royalty. A deep-rooted Southerner with a fondness for stylish New York locales. A gay man, married with children, who has embraced a Republican Party that has sometimes vilified elements, and individuals, of the L.G.B.T.Q. movement.Such are the crosscurrents coursing through the biography of Scott Bessent, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary. The appointment would give him vast power over the nation’s economic plans — and place him fifth in line for the presidency, potentially the highest governmental position ever held by a gay person.A hedge-fund titan with a formidable professional pedigree, Mr. Bessent, 62, has been a quiet presence in New York’s social scene since the 1990s, when he worked for George Soros, the liberal megadonor and financier, eventually managing tens of billions of dollars in assets.He counts among his friends a group of elegant socialites and women of the world, Capote-ian swans of a different era, including the president-elect’s former sister-in-law Blaine Trump, Princess Firyal of Jordan and Queen Camilla, whom he once hosted at his Hamptons home — and forced to smoke her cigarettes outside. He is friends, too, with King Charles III, who has regularly hosted him at Buckingham Palace. Mr. Bessent no longer has a home in New York City, and is instead schooling his two children, Charlotte and Cole, ages 11 and 15, in London with his husband, John Freeman, a former assistant district attorney in the Bronx, whom he married in 2011. The family also has homes in Charleston, S.C. — the state where Mr. Bessent was raised — and in Lyford Cay, a gated community in Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, which advertises itself as “one of the Caribbean’s most elegant and exclusive enclaves.”But Mr. Bessent’s family history is also pocked with hardships, including two bankruptcies for his father — a decade apart, in 1969 and 1979 — and the 2022 death of his younger sister, Wyn Nicole Bessent, who had worked as a public defender and seemingly lived a simpler life far removed from her brother’s glittering existence.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More