Job is one of most powerful in Washington with huge influence over US economy and financial markets
Donald Trump nominated Scott Bessent, a longtime hedge-fund investor who taught at Yale University for several years, to be his treasury secretary, a statement from Trump confirmed on Friday. The job is one of the most powerful in Washington, with huge influence over America’s gigantic economy and financial markets.
The move to select Bessent is the latest as the president-elect starts to pull together the administration for his second term in the White House. The process so far has been marked largely by a focus more on personal and political loyalty to Trump than expertise and experience.
In economics, one of the main focuses and controversies of the treasury role will be to deal with Trump’s high-profile and oft-repeated promises to pursue a policy of aggressive new US tariffs in foreign trade – something that is widely feared by many other countries across the globe.
Wall Street had been closely watching who Trump would pick for the treasury role, especially given his plans to remake global trade through tariffs.
Bessent, 62, has advocated for tax reform and deregulation, particularly to spur more bank lending and energy production, as noted in a recent opinion piece he wrote for the Wall Street Journal.
