Treasury Sec. Bessent: Trump 'Uses Tariffs to Negotiate'

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Tucker Carlson that President Donald Trump's tariff strategy is not new, that America's original "tariff man" was Alexander Hamilton, the country's first treasury secretary.

"And he used tariffs to fund the new nation and to protect American industry. President Trump has added a third leg to the stool, and he uses tariffs to negotiate," Bessent said.

The secretary said in the interview posted on X that what's happening with the Trump strategy is a long-term plan to reverse the effects of what other countries have been doing to America for a long time.

"And President Trump cares," Bessent said. "This administration cares. And 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 added that this isn't a turning point for America — it's a returning point.

"So, you know, I think that this is the beginning of a process. We're going to reindustrialize," Bessent said.

Very few people, Bessent said, will find anything truly good that resulted from the COVID-19 scare. But one thing that came to light, according to him, is that it helped many Americans realize how far the nation had sunk leading up to those years.

"We're not strategically secure. So that we don't make our own medicines, that we don't make our own semiconductors, that we don't make our own ships anymore. So, I think, if I were to say was there any good outcome from COVID, it was it woke the world up to these supply chain problems."

Bessent said Wall Street did very well leading up to Trump's second term. But, now, he said, "It's Main Street's turn."

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