Donald Trump on Friday appointed Scott Bessent, founder of the investment company Key Square Group and ardent promoter of political control over the Federal Reserve (Fed), to the post of Secretary of the Treasury, according to American media.
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Cited among the favorites for this position, Mr. Bessent, who is a long-time close friend of the Trump family, will play an essential role in the implementation of the economic program of the president-elect of the United States but also in the control of public debt.
“He will help me launch a new golden age for the United States, solidifying our role as the world’s leading economy, center of innovation and business creation, destination of capital, while ensuring that the “The dollar remains, without question, the world’s reserve currency,” Donald Trump said in a statement.
A graduate of Yale University, he began his career in 1991 within the investment company of billionaire George Soros (SFM), a true bête noire of conservatives, which he left for the first time in 2000 to launch its own investment fund.
After an initial failure, he returned to SFM in 2011 before resigning again to launch Key Square Group.
He will play a key role at the head of the Treasury Department, a prestigious position within the government, with both an advisory role, management of the federal budget and supervision of economic policy.
Scott Bessent will notably have to increase and sustain the tax cuts made during Donald Trump’s first term (2017-2021) and which will expire in 2025.
Its mission will also be to manage the reduction of the public deficit, the control of the federal debt which reaches 36,000 billion dollars, as well as trade relations with the main partners of the United States, including China.
He will also play an important role in the control of supervisory financial institutions like the Fed, with regard to which he ardently defends an increased role for political power in the decision-making process.
Scott Bessent would become, if his appointment is approved by the Senate, the first openly gay minister of a Republican government, underlines the magazine Forbes.
His name had been in the balance since November 5 with that of Howard Lutnick, finally appointed Secretary of Commerce on Tuesday and who had support in Donald Trump’s entourage, notably that of billionaire Elon Musk.
Comparing the two men, Elon Musk estimated on his X account that Scott “Bessent would be a choice of status quo, while Howard Lutnick would really implement the change” wanted by Donald Trump.
