Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Says Trump Tariffs Will Drive Investments, Calls US Economy ‘Antifragile’

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent thinks there is a silver lining in the cloud concerning President Donald Trump’s tariffs and highlighted that the administration’s trade policy aims to level the playing field for American companies and workers.

“Tariffs are engineered to encourage companies like yours to invest directly in the United States. Hire your workers here. Build your factories here. Make your products here,” he stated in prepared remarks before his speech at the Milken Institute Global Conference.

He said President Trump’s economic agenda aims to bring more jobs, homes, growth, and critical manufacturing to the U.S. shores.

Bessent also discussed the Trump administration’s broader economic policies, including tax incentives and deregulation. Together with tariffs, the Treasury Secretary thinks that the value of Trump’s policies is greater than the sum of their parts.

“Each policy is mutually reinforcing. And acting in concert, they push toward the same goal—to solidify our position as the home of global capital,” he added.

He also called the U.S. economy “antifragile” and said there’s “never a bad time to invest in America.”

In April, Bessent attacked China’s retaliatory tariffs, calling them “unfortunate,” and said they are the “worst offenders” in international trade.

He later said Trump’s trade war with China would de-escalate in the “very near future.”

However, Bessent also sharpened his attacks against China, calling its economic policies “distortive” and its export-oriented model “unsustainable.”

He said that China should move away from its export-based model to a more inward-looking one to fix the trade imbalance. 

At the time of writing, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500 index, was down 0.25%.

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