USA: Treasury Secretary Position in Trump administration Goes to Investor Bessent

The future administration of the United States is taking shape. President-elect Donald Trump has picked investor Scott Bessent to be his new Treasury Secretary. In the US ministerial hierarchy, this position more or less corresponds to that of the Minister of Economy in Europe. Like all other appointments, Bessent’s nomination will also have to be confirmed by the Senate.

Bessent, 62, is the founder of Key Square Group, a major US hedge fund. During the Republican candidate’s campaign, Bessent portrayed himself as one of Trump’s top economic and financial advisers. Regarding future US economic policy, the American press writes that “Bessent favors cutting welfare, deregulating the economy, increasing national energy production, and applying duties on foreign goods sold in the United States.”

At the same time, a number of US media outlets expressed considerable bewilderment at the appointment, recalling that “an element of Bessent’s professional past could upset part of the Republican electorate”: in the 1990s, the likely next Treasury Secretary “worked for Soros Fund Management, an investment firm founded by George Soros, the Hungarian-Jewish billionaire and philanthropist at the center of many conspiracy theories in the USA and Europe.”

Earlier, Trump nominated Brooke Rollins to be the next Secretary of Agriculture. In a press release, Trump praised Rollins’s “commitment to supporting American farmers, protecting America’s food self-sufficiency, and restoring small-town America’s dependence on agriculture.” Trump has also picked people to lead the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), two of the most important US health agencies. They would be surgeon Marty Makary and former Republican congressman Dave Weldon, respectively, who made headlines during the pandemic for their opposition to mandatory vaccination.