WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump will nominate Wall Street veteran Scott Bessent to be the secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Trump announced Friday night.
If confirmed by the Senate to be the department’s 79th secretary, Bessent will face a record-high national debt of $36 trillion, and the possibility of more as tax cuts are high on the to-do list for Trump and Republican lawmakers in 2025. He has no previous experience in government.
The position overseeing the nation’s finances was among the last major Cabinet posts Trump had yet to announce, and deliberations for the post were reportedly contentious at times.
Trump said in a statement that Bessent 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 U.S. Dollar as the Reserve Currency of the World.”
“Unlike in past Administrations, we will ensure that no Americans will be left behind in the next and Greatest Economic Boom, and Scott will lead that effort for me, and the Great People of the United States of America,” Trump continued.
Bessent is the founder of the hedge fund Key Square Management, which Forbes reports had less than $600 million in assets as of the end of 2023. The South Carolina native and Yale graduate is a member of the Economic Club of New York and an advocate for one of Trump’s major campaign promises — tariffs.
In an opinion piece he wrote for Fox News published just one week ago, Bessent praised tariffs as a “useful tool” and “significant” revenue raiser.
“The truth is that other countries have taken advantage of the U.S.’s openness for far too long, because we allowed them to. Tariffs are a means to finally stand up for Americans,” Bessent wrote.
Trump campaigned on levying at least 10% tariffs on all foreign products and steep targeted tariffs on Chinese and Mexican imports upwards of 60%.
Treasury functions
The Treasury Department manages government accounts and debt, collects taxes, issues currency, and investigates financial crimes, among other duties. The agency has over 100,000 employees based in the United States and across the globe, and has requested a $14.4 billion budget for fiscal year 2025.
As the nation’s borrowing power is once again capped next year, a large focus of the Treasury secretary may be working with the White House and Congress on raising the so-called debt ceiling. The secretary will be tasked with determining the date at which the U.S. coffers run too low to pay the bills, putting the nation’s creditworthiness at risk.
The department’s several bureaus and offices include the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions. The U.S. has designated thousands of Russian individuals, banks and entities to be on OFAC’s sanctions lists and continues to do so amid the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The agency’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, investigates financial transaction data, including suspicious activity reports legally required of banks if they suspect tax evasion, money laundering or terrorist financing.
Last updated 6:35 p.m., Nov. 22, 2024
