Breitbart Business Digest: Bessent Lays Out Trump’s America First Economic Vision

Scott Bessent Describes the Three Pillars of Trumponomics

Speaking today before the Economic Club of New York, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent laid out the intellectual foundation of Trump’s economic vision, describing a comprehensive strategy designed to restore American prosperity and reclaim economic sovereignty.

At the heart of this strategy are three fundamental priorities: revitalizing the private sector, ensuring economic security as a component of national security, and reorienting global trade relationships to put American workers first.

Re-privatizing the American Economy

Bessent began by highlighting the administration’s commitment to what he calls the re-privatization of the economy—a decisive push to roll back regulatory overreach, rein in government excess, and shift economic power away from Washington bureaucrats and back to American businesses and workers. “At Treasury, we will lead a comprehensive and assertive effort across the administration to empower our nation’s banks to finance the economy’s pursuit of job growth, wealth creation, and prosperity for all Americans,” Bessent stated.

A key obstacle to economic expansion, he argued, has been the Biden administration’s heavy-handed approach to financial regulation, which has stifled growth and contributed to instability in the banking system. He pointed to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) as a prime example of regulatory failure. Instead of focusing on the core safety and soundness of financial institutions, regulators under Biden had been distracted by political agendas, leaving the system vulnerable to crisis.

One particularly harmful policy, he explained, has been the Supplementary Leverage Ratio (SLR), a regulation that forces banks to hold capital against assets regardless of their risk levels. This has become a binding constraint, discouraging banks from financing economic expansion and even from holding risk-free U.S. Treasuries. The result has been higher yields, increased borrowing costs, and unnecessary constraints on credit availability.

He also warned that community banks have been “overloaded with unproductive reporting requirements that have little to do with reducing material financial risk” and instead are severely limiting their ability to lend to small businesses and middle-class Americans. The administration’s goal is to de-leverage the public sector and re-leverage the private sector, shifting economic power away from Washington and back to the markets.

National Security Is Inseparable from Economic Security

Shifting his focus to international trade, Bessent emphasized that economic security is national security. The Trump administration views global economic relationships not as isolated transactions but as part of a complex web of military, political, and economic interlinkages.

“The international trading system consists of a web of relationships—military, economic, political. One cannot take a single aspect in isolation. This is how President Trump sees the world, not as a zero-sum game, but as interlinkages that can be reordered to advance the interests of the American people,” he explained.

For too long, he argued, U.S. policymakers have ignored the trade-offs of unconstrained globalization. The United States has served as a source of massive demand, a global peacekeeper, and an economic stabilizer for other nations—all without receiving adequate compensation. The imbalance has placed an enormous burden on American workers and taxpayers, while countries like China, Germany, and Japan have manipulated their economic policies to their own advantage. He rejected the notion that access to cheap goods is the core of the American Dream, arguing instead that true economic prosperity comes from a system where citizens can achieve upward mobility, stability, and national strength.

“Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American Dream. The American Dream is rooted in the concept that any citizen can achieve prosperity, upward mobility, and economic security. For too long, the designers of multilateral trade deals have lost sight of this,” he said.

Bessent also took direct aim at the idea of Ricardian Equivalence—the theory that deficits do not matter because consumers will offset government borrowing by saving more. He dismissed this as outdated thinking, pointing out that China’s economic policies effectively “export” their savings to the United States, creating an artificial trade imbalance that punishes American workers. “Ricardian Equivalence does not work. China is exporting their policy to us. Tariffs are one way to push back on this,” he explained.

Trump’s aggressive tariff policies, Bessent explained, are a necessary corrective to decades of trade misalignment. He described tariffs as a tool to rebalance global trade and ensure that the system rewards ingenuity, security, rule of law, and fair competition rather than wage suppression, intellectual property theft, and regulatory manipulation. “International economic relations that do not work for the American people must be re-examined. This is what tariffs are designed to address—leveling the playing field so that the international trading system rewards ingenuity, security, rule of law, and stability—not wage suppression, currency manipulation, intellectual property theft, non-tariff barriers, and draconian regulations,” he argued.

This aligns with what we argued in yesterday’s Breitbart Business Digest. America’s trade deficit is not just a matter of domestic policy choices, but the result of foreign governments actively distorting global trade to their advantage. China, Germany, and Japan have long relied on suppressing domestic consumption and pushing their excess production onto the U.S. market. These surpluses don’t occur naturally—they are engineered by foreign economic policies. As a result, the U.S. has absorbed these imbalances through open capital markets and a perpetual trade deficit. Tariffs are not just an economic tool—they are a defensive measure. Without them, the U.S. remains a dumping ground for surplus production from countries rigging the system to their advantage.

In a discussion with Larry Kudlow, the Fox Business anchor and former National Economic Council director, Bessent stressed that tariffs are not simply about protectionism but are also a strategic tool for negotiation. Trump’s reciprocal tariff policy is designed to pressure trading partners into lowering their own tariffs rather than escalating trade disputes.

“As President Trump has said many times, tariff is his favorite word. I would say that reciprocal is probably his second favorite word,” he noted.

But not all world leaders are willing to negotiate. He took a direct shot at Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, criticizing his decision to impose retaliatory tariffs against the U.S.

“If you want to be a numbskull like Justin Trudeau and say, ‘oh, we’re going to do this’ [respond to U.S. tariffs by raising their own tariffs], then tariffs are going to go up. But if you want to sit back, have a discussion with the Commerce Department, USTR, I am happy to have a discussion with our foreign counterparts,” he remarked.

The Intellectual Foundation of the Golden Age

Bessent’s speech was more than just an economic policy outline—it was a comprehensive explanation of the intellectual foundation behind Trump’s economic vision. The administration sees this strategy as the framework for what Trump has called “America’s Golden Age.” The economic policies being implemented are not short-term stimulus measures but fundamental shifts designed to restructure global trade, revive American industry, and ensure that U.S. economic policy serves the interests of American workers.