For the Trump team, Scott Bessent had two faults: He was a former collaborator of George Soros, a billionaire hated by Republicans for his defense of progressive causes, and he had declared a little hastily, in an interview with the Financial Timesthat the tariffs Donald Trump dreams of imposing were above all a negotiating posture. “My general view is that at the end of the day, he’s a free trader. It’s escalate to de-escalate,” Bessent said on October 13.
And yet, after much intrigue and counter-candidacies presented under the paneling of the neo-romantic palace of Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida, the president-elect stuck to his initial choice and announced his decision on Friday, November 21. At 62, Bessent, the billionaire founder of the Key Square Capital Management hedge fund, will succeed economist and central banker Janet Yellen as head of the US Treasury.
“On the eve of our great country’s 250th anniversary, he will help me usher in a new golden age for the United States, as we fortify our position as the world’s leading economy, center of innovation and entrepreneurialism, destination for capital, while always, and without question, maintaining the US dollar as the reserve currency of the world,” Trump wrote in a statement.
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Bessent grew up in South Carolina and graduated from the prestigious Yale University in Connecticut. He belongs to the Huguenot Church of Charleston, founded by French Protestant émigrés after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. He is credited with kicking the British pound out of the European monetary system and bringing the Bank of England to its knees, alongside Soros, in 1992. He has also speculated on the yen and Italian debt.
According to the Wall Street JournalBessent advised Trump to pursue a “3-3-3” policy: reduce the budget deficit to 3% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2028, boost growth to 3% through deregulation and produce an additional 3 million barrels of oil per day.
Squaring the circle
The future head of the Treasury will have the task of managing the US budget and limiting an abysmal deficit that reached $1.83 trillion for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, or 6.3% of GDP, despite strong growth and full employment. This deficit is twice the level of 2019, the last non-Covid-19 year of Trump’s first term.
What’s new in 2024 is that the president-elect doesn’t consider military spending, which stands at around $825 billion, to be taboo, as evidenced by the proposed cuts outlined by his adviser Elon Musk in an op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal.
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