Donald Trump has appointed Scott Bessent to lead the US Treasury Department, a position that broadly covers tax policy, public debt, international finance and sanctions.
The appointment ends what has been seen as one of the decisions that took a long time for the president-elect as he will assemble his team for a second term.
Bessent, a Wall Street financier who once worked for George Soros, was an early supporter of Trump’s 2024 bid and will bring a familiar background to the role.
In his campaign, he told voters that Trump would usher in “a new golden age of deregulation, affordable energy, [and] lower taxes”.
“Scott is highly regarded as one of the world’s leading investors and Geopolitical and Economic Strategists,” Trump said in an announcement posted on Truth Social on Friday.
“[He] has long been a strong advocate of the America First Agenda,” he said, adding that Bessent “will support my policies that will drive US competitiveness, and end trade imbalances.”
If Bessent’s nomination is confirmed by the Senate, he will likely jump into the battle in Washington over extending the tax cuts from Trump’s first term.
Trump also called for controversial changes to trade policy, proposing sweeping tariffs on all goods entering the country.
Such ideas have been met with alarm in traditional economic and business circles.
In an interview with Fox News just before the election, Bessent said that ensuring that the tax cuts do not end as planned at the end of next year will be his top priority, if he ends up in the administration.
“If it doesn’t happen, this will be the largest tax increase in American history,” he warned.
In some posts, Trump has been willing to support people with little experience in favor of honesty and apparent confidence in his promises.
But he appeared more hesitant to hold a meeting at the Treasury Department, which serves as a key liaison between the White House and Wall Street and has important duties including collecting taxes, managing banks, implementing sanctions and managing the US government’s debt.
Bessent, a native of South Carolina, graduated from Yale University and began his career at Brown Brothers Harriman, one of the oldest investment firms in the US.
He made his name in the 1990s betting on the British pound and the Japanese yen while working for Soros, a major donor to the Democratic Alliance.
In 2015, he started his own fund, Key Square Capital Management, known for making investments based on big-picture economic policy.
He also taught economic history at Yale, was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and served as a trustee of the Rockefeller Institute.
She and her husband, a former New York City prosecutor, married in 2011 and have two children. He is known for his philanthropy in South Carolina, where his family has deep roots.
Bessent defended the tariffs – a cornerstone of Trump’s protectionist agenda – saying their opposition was based on political ideology and not “economic considerations”.
But he also pointed to Trump’s support for border tariffs as a negotiating tool, suggesting the president-elect is not committed to raising jobs.
That position makes him more balanced than others whose names have been floated for the position of treasury, such as former US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.
However, Bessent has been a staunch supporter of Trump’s embrace of the crypto industry. Such support would make him the first treasury secretary to be an outspoken champion of cryptocurrency, sending a clear signal that Trump is determined to establish the US as the “crypto capital of the planet”.
In an interview with Fox News over the summer, Bessent said he thinks cryptocurrencies fit well with the ethos of the Republican Party, and Democrats are overreacting to fraudsters like Sam Bankman-Fried.
“Crypto is about freedom,” he said.
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