A top economic adviser to Donald Trump dismissed concerns that the former president would weaken the dollar or cut trade if re-elected, insisting he wants the US to remain the world’s reserve currency and uses tariffs as a negotiating tactic.
The comments from Scott Bessent, a 62-year-old hedge fund manager who made a windfall betting on the Japanese yen and British pound for liberal philanthropist George Soros, are relevant because he has emerged as a top Trump adviser on the economy and finance in recent years.
Although Bessent did not serve in the Trump administration between 2017 and 2021, he has given more than $2mn to his campaign in 2024, co-hosting fundraisers across America and in London. He is frequently spoken of as a possible Treasury secretary if Trump wins back the White House.
Trump and running mate JD Vance have called for weakening the dollar to boost American exports, despite the cost to American consumers buying foreign goods.
But speaking to the Financial Times, Bessent said he expected a possible new Trump administration to support a strong dollar in line with US policy over decades and would not deliberately try to devalue it.
Bessent said Trump “stands by the US as a reserve currency”.
“The reserve currency can go up and down based on the market. I believe that if you have good economic policies, you’re naturally going to have a strong dollar.”
Bessent, who cautioned that he did not speak for Trump, also defended the former president’s pledge to impose sweeping tariffs on imports, including across-the-board levies of up to 20 per cent on all goods. These were “maximalist” positions that would probably be watered down in talks with trading partners, he said.
“My general view is that at the end of the day, he’s a free trader,” said Bessent. “It’s escalate to de-escalate.”
He added that Trump would appoint a new Federal Reserve head — current chair Jay Powell’s term is up in 2026 — but would not interfere with its independence. There are fears that the former president could politicise the central bank if he won a second term.
“He’s going to make his views known,” said Bessent. “I think what’s different about Trump is he’s a businessman — and he understands economics.”
Bessent is based in South Carolina and founded global macro investment firm Key Square Group, which was seeded with $2bn from Soros.
He has become one of Trump’s top economic advisers, earning a shout out from the Republican nominee during his September speech at the New York Economic Club. He has made public appearances alongside other top Trump allies this year, including with Kevin Hassett, the former chair of the council of economic advisers, at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February. He also appeared with Stephen Moore, a Trump appointee to the Fed board who failed to gain Senate confirmation for the post, at an economic policy summit during the summer’s Republican national convention.
In the 1990s, Bessent ran Soros Fund Management’s London office and helped to create a bet against the British pound that netted more than $1bn in profit. From 2011 to 2015, he worked as the chief investment officer at Soros’s family office, making another windfall betting against the Japanese yen.
Bessent said he had not faced any scepticism from Republicans for having worked for the liberal Soros.
“George is very good at understanding how complex systems either accelerate or break down. And I think that’s my strong point, too,” said Bessent. “Unfortunately, he’s taken that to the political arena.”
Bessent said he viewed himself as “the bridge” between traditional and nationalist conservatism, which were at odds over foreign trade, among other topics.
“I’m quite concerned that this is the last chance to grow our way out of this debt and not become a European-style, over-regulated, over-indebted economy,” he said.
“I think that we are in the midst of a reordering on international trade and relationships, and I’d like to be a part of that, either on the inside or the outside.”
Bessent would be a pugnacious pick for a Senate-confirmed position. In the course of the interview with the FT, he labelled Democratic nominee Kamala Harris “an economic illiterate” and her running mate, Tim Walz, “twice as illiterate”.
He defended Trump’s economic plans after a recent study suggested the former president’s pledges would increase the national debt twice as much as Harris’s, calling the modelling by its author, the non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, “terrible”. He added that the CRFB did not fully account for how cutting taxes would enable growth.
Bessent also blasted studies showing Trump’s proposals — including tariffs, tax cuts, deregulation and deportation — would increase consumer prices, and noted how prices skyrocketed under Joe Biden’s presidency.
“It’s insanity — this idea that Trump is inflationary is absurd,” he said. “We had the worst inflation in 40 years under Biden-Harris. Everything she is talking about is inflationary, but somehow there’s going to be equanimity of inflation under her.”
Bessent suggested that Trump could cut spending by dismantling Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which he called “the Doomsday machine for the deficit”. He added that the federal government could give more power to the states on Medicaid, the US government health programme for poor families expanded under the Affordable Care Act. Such a move could potentially lead to cutbacks.
He downplayed the benefits of closing the so-called carried interest loophole, which allows investment managers to pay the lower capital gains tax rate on their profits rather than the higher personal income tax.
“It’s not much money,” said Bessent. “I think these symbolic things are ridiculous.”
The billionaire investor said he believed that “one of the greatest things” that Trump had done was make the GOP “the party of working-class people”.
Letters in response to this article:
Tariffs for Trump are the solution to every problem / From David Beffert, Portland, OR, US
Wealthy donors may live to regret Trump second term / From Steven E Cerier, New York, NY, US
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