Sec. Scott Bessent Asked Point Blank How Much Tariff Pause Was Caused By 'Bond Market Cratering'

2 days ago

At a press gaggle outside the White House on Wednesday, Sec. Scott Bessent spoke about the decision to pause tariffs.

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Transcript

00:00Mr. Secretary, why do people assume this is the last war?

00:04The President began this morning saying, be cool, five hours later, he announces a new policy.

00:09Why will investors in the market assume that this is it?

00:12Because, again, as I said, we've given 90 days, and the only certainty we can provide

00:19is that the U.S. is going to negotiate in good faith, and we assume that our allies will too.

00:24And in terms of certainty, we will see what China does, but what I am certain of is that

00:33what China is doing will affect their economy much more than it will ours, because they have

00:40an export-driven, flood-the-world with cheap export models, and the rest of the world now

00:47understands, because when we put up our tariff wall, those exports were already flowing to

00:53the rest of the G7 and to the Global South.

00:56Mr. Secretary, how much of this decision was driven by the bond market cratering overnight?

01:03What is happening with China selling their bonds?

01:06I have nothing that says that, and we actually had quite a good 10-year auction today, and

01:12all this was, again, this was driven by the President's strategy.

01:16He and I had a long talk on Sunday, and this was his strategy all along, and that, you know,

01:24you might even say that he goaded China into a bad position.

01:29They responded.

01:31They have shown themselves to the world to be the bad actors, and we are willing to cooperate

01:37with our allies and with our trading partners who did not retaliate.

01:42It wasn't a hard message.

01:44Don't retaliate.

01:45Things will turn out well.

Sec. Scott Bessent Asked Point Blank How Much Tariff Pause Was Caused By 'Bond Market Cratering'

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