U.S. president-elect Donald Trump announced Friday that he’ll nominate former George Soros money manager Scott Bessent, an advocate for deficit reduction, to serve as his next treasury secretary.
Trump said online Bessent would “help me usher in a new Golden Age for the United States.”Â
Bessent, 62, is the founder of hedge fund Key Square Capital Management, after having worked on-and-off for Soros Fund Management since 1991. If confirmed by the Senate, he would be the nation’s first openly gay treasury secretary.
He told Bloomberg in August that he decided to join Trump’s campaign in part to attack the mounting U.S. national debt. That would include slashing government programs and other spending.
“This election cycle is the last chance for the U.S. to grow our way out of this mountain of debt without becoming a sort of European-style socialist democracy,” he said then.
As of Nov. 8, the U.S. national debt stands at $35.94 trillion, with both the Trump and Biden administrations having added to it. Trump’s policies added $8.4 trillion, while the Biden administration increased it by $4.3 trillion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a fiscal watchdog.
Even as he pushes to lower the national debt by stop spending, Bessent has backed extending provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which Trump signed into law in his first year in office. Estimates from various economic analysis of the costs of the various tax cuts range between nearly $6 trillion and $10 trillion over 10 years. Nearly all of the law’s provisions are set to expire at the end of 2025.
Before becoming a Trump donor and adviser, Bessent donated to various Democratic causes in the early 2000s, notably Al Gore’s presidential run. He also worked for Soros, a major supporter of Democrats. Bessent had an influential role in Soros’s London operations, including his famous 1992 bet against the pound, which generated huge profits on “Black Wednesday,” when the pound was de-linked from European currencies.
Bessent’s selection wasn’t surprising; He had been among the names floated for the treasury secretary role. At an October Detroit Economic Club event, Trump called Bessent “one of the top analysts on Wall Street.”
Tariffs aimed primarily at China: Bessent
Bessent told Bloomberg in August that he views tariffs as a “one-time price adjustment” and “not inflationary,” and said tariffs imposed during a second Trump administration would be directed primarily at China.
He wrote in a Fox News op-ed this week that tariffs are “a useful tool” for achieving foreign policy objectives.
“Whether it is getting allies to spend more on their own defence, opening foreign markets to U.S. exports, securing co-operation on ending illegal immigration and interdicting fentanyl trafficking, or deterring military aggression, tariffs can play a central role.”
Bessent told Fox News earlier this month when asked if tariffs would pay for Trump’s large-scale deportation operation that he had been working on a plan for what he called “financial deportations,” explaining he would restrict the flow of remittances to migrants’ home countries.
Bessent has also floated ideas for how the Trump administration could put pressure on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, whose term expires in May 2026. Last month, Bessent suggested Trump could name a replacement chair early, and let that person function as a “shadow” chair, with the goal of essentially sidelining Powell.
But after the election, Bessent reportedly backed away from that plan. Powell, for his part, has said he wouldn’t step down if Trump asked him to do so, and added that Trump, as president, doesn’t have the authority to fire him.
Trump repeatedly attacked Powell during his first term for raising the Fed’s key rate in 2017 and 2018. During the 2024 campaign, he said that as president he should have a “say” in the central bank’s interest rate decisions. Presidents traditionally avoid commenting on the Fed’s policies.
