Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Details Trump’s Tariff Plans

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“I took some flak last week at the Economic Club [of New York] where I said cheap goods are not the American dream,” Bessent said. “Mike Pence came out and said ‘Secretary Bessent doesn’t know what he’s talking about.’ I would tell the former vice president that ‘let them eat flat screens is not an economic policy.’ People want to have good jobs, they want to own a home, they want to have dignity, they want to enjoy work, they want their communities to be sound, and we want affordability but bringing in a bunch of baubles and trinkets to satisfy people who are displaced isn’t the American dream.”

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This is a slow and inexorable process and there will be no tariffs for the companies that move their manufacturing here. That’s part of it,” Bessent said. “There is a necessary rebalancing here. China is the most imbalanced or unbalanced economy in the history of the world. They have exported deflation, their manufacturing policies have decimated our workers and decimated our communities, and by putting up a tariff wall the manufacturers will bring their production back here or we can collect a substantial amount of revenue for the U.S. government. The initial phase-one tariffs from Trump 1.0, I think, are collecting $30 billion or $40 billion a year, which go to pay for a lot of tax cuts for working Americans.”

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