Future
What Trump’s Treasury Pick Might Get Asked Today
Scott Bessent, a billionaire hedge fund manager, will likely face tough questions on tax cuts and tariffs — and how bond markets might check his economic agenda.
The markets will be listening intently today to testimony by Scott Bessent, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary.Credit…Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters
A test for Trump’s cabinet pick
For businesses and markets, perhaps the most important of the hearings for the incoming Trump administration’s Cabinet picks starts on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. Eastern.
Scott Bessent, President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for Treasury secretary, will likely be confirmed by the Senate. But the billionaire hedge fund manager is still expected to face tough questions about his boss’s economic agenda, which has the potential to drastically disrupt global economies and trade.
“We can usher in a new, more balanced era of prosperity and rebuild communities and families across the country,” Bessent is expected to say in prepared remarks to the Senate Finance Committee.
Critics are skeptical. “Bessent has spent his life helping the rich get richer,” Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, told The Times. (Democrats intend to grill him on matters including how he collected earnings from his hedge fund that, they say, allowed him to avoid paying more than $900,000 in payroll taxes.)
That said, he has already won support from both Wall Street and hard-core Trump supporters. And even Warren has called him “smart” and “thoughtful.”
Bessent will be asked about two big parts of Trump’s economic vision. One is sweeping tariffs on allies and rivals alike as a means of extracting trade concessions — which if rolled out could drastically raise consumer prices. He’s expected to say that he would prefer such levies to be rolled out gradually, to avoid sticker shock.
