Economic Uncertainty Unfounded, Says Treasury Secretary

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says economic uncertainty is unfounded, despite recent market volatility and the implementation of new tariffs on foreign trade partners. Speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," Bessent expressed skepticism toward day-to-day market fluctuations.

"Who knows how the market is gonna react in a day, in a week?" Bessent said. "What we are looking at is building the long-term economic fundamentals for prosperity that I think the previous administration had put us on a course toward financial calamity."

The comments come after all three major U.S. stock indexes closed in the red, following a week of sell-offs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged by more than 2,200 points to close at 38,314, marking the first time the index has fallen below 40,000 since August 2024.

President Donald Trump's announcement last week imposed a baseline 10% tariff on all U.S. trade partners, with additional tariffs on what the White House described as the "worst offenders."

"This is one of the most important days, in my opinion, in American history," President Trump said during the announcement. "For years, hardworking American citizens were forced to sit on the sidelines as other nations got rich and powerful, much of it at our expense. But now it's our turn to prosper, and in so doing use trillions and trillions of dollars to reduce taxes and pay down our national debt."

Many economists disagree with the White House's claims that tariffs will raise hundreds of billions of dollars and spark more companies to produce their goods domestically. Instead, they say consumers will pay the price.

"In the end, it is pretty much always the domestic consumers that pay almost the full share these tariffs," said economics professor Keith Maskus. "And again, it's just the way tariffs work."