Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said to Tucker Carlson that President Donald Trump’s tariff strategy was not new. Hamilton, America’s first treasury secretary, was the original “tariffman”.
“And he used the tariffs to protect American Industry and fund the new nation,” Bessent stated that President Trump added a third leg and uses tariffs for negotiations.
In an interview published on X, the secretary stated that the Trump strategy was a long-term effort to reverse what other countries had been doing for a very long time to America.
“And President Trump cares,” Bessent said. “This administration cares. This is the first step toward realigning. A lot of our trading partners, including some of our allies, have not been good partners. If tariffs are so bad, why do they have them? My question. Why do they have them? Right? Or if the American consumer is going to pay all the tariffs, then why do they care about tariffs? Right? Because they’re going to eat them.”
Bessent said that this is not a turning-point for America, but a return point.
“I think this is just the beginning,” Bessent stated, saying that we are going to reindustrialize.
Bessent stated that very few people will be able to find any positive outcomes from the COVID-19 panic. He said that one good thing that came out of the COVID-19 scare was that it made many Americans aware of how low they had fallen in those years.
“We are not strategically secure. We don’t manufacture our drugs, semiconductors, or ships. If I had to choose a good result from COVID, it would be that it made the world aware of these supply-chain problems.”
Bessent stated that Wall Street performed very well in the lead-up to Trump’s second term. He said that now it’s Main Street’s turn.
