(Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, will prioritize fulfilling his campaign tax cut promises, he told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published on Sunday.
Bessent told the WSJ that the tax cuts would include making Trump’s first-term tax cuts constant, as well as eliminating taxes on tips, Social Security benefits and overtime wages.
Bessent would also focus on imposing tariffs, cutting spending and maintaining the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency, he told the newspaper in an interview.
Bessent, who has been a donor, economic adviser and Trump booster on television, was Trump’s nominee on Friday to be U.S. Treasury secretary.
Bessent spent his career in finance working for billionaire macro investor George Soros and renowned miniature seller Jim Chanos, and has advocated for tax reform and deregulation, particularly to boost bank lending and energy production, as noted in a recent opinion he wrote for the Wall Street Journal.
As U.S. Treasury secretary, Bessent will essentially be the highest-ranking U.S. economic official responsible for running the world’s largest economy, from collecting taxes and paying bills to managing the $28.6 trillion Treasury debt market and overseeing financial regulations.
The treasury chief also directs U.S. financial sanctions policy, influences the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other U.S.-led international financial institutions, and manages national security controls on foreign investments in the United States.
