U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent delivers remarks to the American Bankers Association summit in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 9, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt
Editor's note: This headline has been updated.
When Fox News host Maria Bartiromo told Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Wednesday that business executives said they're worried about the United States economy following President Donald Trump's sweeping global tariffs, he attempted to downplay the situation.
“I spoke with one CEO over the weekend, he said we are already in a recession," Bartiromo said to Bessent, asking him how he would deal with the impact of the new policy.
“So, how do you deal with that as you are trying to implement all these new policies, like deregulation, when you’ve got the market expecting a sharp slowdown in economic activity, sir?” she asked.
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Instead of answering the question, Bessent said the CEO she spoke to may have referred to the policies of the previous administration.
“Well, Maria, I think what the CEO may have alluded to, and I said it in the past, that the manufacturing sector under the previous administration was in a recession,” he said.
Trump's earlier attempts to remove protections for regional banks during his previous term contributed to the downfall of multiple regional banks in 2023. They led to a greater concentration of assets under national banks.
“So, what we’re doing is what I call ‘re-privatizing’ the economy,” Bessent said.
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“We are also getting the deficit under control, rightsizing the federal workforce, and then on the other side we are going to re-lever the private sector through smart, safe, and sound bank deregulation," he added.
Bessent said he expects long-term interest rates to come down "as we get the budget under control, inflation under control, energy prices come down, and then the private sector will have room to grow.”
Earlier on Wednesday, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon warned Trump's steep new tariffs will "probably" lead to a recession.
Dimon told Bartiromo that he is hearing "recessionary talk" with other business leaders and said that a recession is a "likely outcome" of Trump's tariffs.
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