President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is preparing to announce that it has selected Scott Besant, who runs the macro hedge fund Square Group, according to people familiar with the matter. , as the next US Treasury Secretary.
An announcement is expected as soon as Friday, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the process, and a press release is being prepared.
Besant, 62, served as Trump’s key economic adviser during the campaign, promoting his agenda and preparing policy speeches. If confirmed by the Senate — which will be held by Republicans until Trump takes office in January — Besant will assume the role of the nation’s top economic policymaker, and many of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts Will try to extend beyond them. will end next year.
Treasury secretaries have enormous responsibility for the global economy, including oversight of the world’s largest bond market, tax collection and economic sanctions.
Trump is weighing a number of candidates, including Apollo Global Management Inc. executive Mark Rowan, former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh and Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty. Another contender, transition co-chair Howard Litnick, was dropped from the race before Trump nominated him to lead the Commerce Department.
Until the announcement is final, Trump could still choose another candidate. The Trump transition team and Besant did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Besant has been a proponent of realigning US monetary policy, although he has clearly pursued a strategy of devaluing the dollar. Stopped supporting. During Trump’s first term, the then-president called out the value of the dollar and even the greenback as harmful to American manufacturers. Also considered government intervention to regulate value.
Besant acknowledged that while a weaker dollar would be good for parts of the economy, some of Trump’s proposals would increase its value.
“Tariffs cause a stronger dollar, so a weaker dollar with tariffs — that’s an economic anomaly,” Besant said in an interview with Bloomberg TV, agreeing with the analysis of many economists.
In a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Besant said Trump’s election “prompted the US dollar’s largest one-day gain in more than two years, and the third largest in the past decade.”
“This is a vote of confidence in American leadership internationally and in the dollar as the world’s reserve currency,” he said.
He has criticized President Joe Biden’s administration’s handling of federal debt financing, and has talked of expanding its “friendshoring” policy to create a level playing field among trading partners.
