Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent highlighted Wednesday how the Trump administration wants “America to be able to build again,” noting because of “a lot of the overreach in the environmental laws,” the United States had not been able to build.
Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle interviewed Bessent noting the U.S. was seeing a “boom in capital expenditures.” When asked by Boyle to explain capital expenditures, Bessent explained that “part of it’s to do with” artificial intelligence (AI).
Secretary Bessent continued to speak about how when asked what he has “learned the most” since taking his position as treasury secretary, he explained that he was surprised at how Germany, which was a “manufacturing powerhouse” had decided to “de-industrialize.” Bessent added that he didn’t realize “what a decision the U.S. had made to de-industrialize.”
“The cap ex boom, part of it’s to do with AI,” Bessent explained. “A lot of people ask me, ‘What surprised you the most?’ or ‘What have you learned the most since you came into office?’ One of the things that surprised me the most — I often remark, Germany or as I talked about, the Europeans, but especially Germany — they were this manufacturing powerhouse, and they made the decision to de-industrialize.”
“I think, I didn’t realize, what a decision the U.S. had made to de-industrialize,” Bessent added. “Through a lot of the overreach in the environmental laws, we were no longer able to build things. And, President Trump, and we in the cabinet, are committed to making sure that America is able to build again. It should not take eight years to get a pipeline approved.”
“TSMC, the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturer wants to build a gigantic plant in Arizona — they want to expand. One of the biggest national security risks to everyone in this room, to the western world, is that 99 percent of the high-performance semiconductors are built in Taiwan. And, they’re having trouble with building permits. We’re having trouble drilling. It’s impossible to do an oil pipeline that crosses state lines — so it’s a combination of tax policy, but regulatory policy. We want America to be able to build again,” Bessent added.
As Breitbart News’s Sean Moran previously reported, Boyle’s conversation with Bessent came as the “Commerce Department found economic growth, as measured by Gross Domestic Product,” which “grew by three percent during the second quarter of 2025.”
During the interview, Bessent also expressed that people had not “seen nothing yet.”
Bessent spoke about how the “economic growth has long been coming as many have worried about the potential economic effects of Trump’s tariff policies,” noting that he had told people who were panicking about tariffs that the Trump administration was “doing peace deals, trade deals,” and tax deals.
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