President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is preparing to announce that he has selected Scott Bessent, who runs macro hedge fund Key Square Group, as the next US Treasury secretary, according to people familiar with the matter.
The announcement is expected to be made as soon as Friday, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the process, and a press release is being prepared.
Bessent, 62, served as a key economic adviser to Trump during the campaign, promoting his agenda and crafting policy speeches. If confirmed by the Senate — which will be in Republican hands by the time Trump takes office in January — Bessent will assume the role of the nation’s highest-ranking economic policymaker, and will spearhead Trump’s bid to extend many of his 2017 tax cuts beyond their expiration next year.
Treasury secretaries have enormous responsibility over the global economy, including oversight of the world’s largest bond market, tax collection and economic sanctions.
Trump has been weighing multiple candidates, including Apollo Global Management Inc. Executive Marc Rowan, former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh and Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty. Another contender, transition co-chair Howard Lutnick was taken out of the running earlier when Trump named him to lead the Commerce Department.
Until the announcement is final, Trump could still opt for another candidate. The Trump transition team and Bessent did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Bessent has been a proponent of realigning US currency policy, although he’s stopped short of supporting an overt strategy of depreciating the dollar. During Trump’s first term, the then-president called out dollar appreciation for being harmful to US manufacturers and even considered government intervention to manage the greenback’s value.
Bessent has acknowledged that while a weaker dollar would be good for some parts of the economy, some of Trump’s proposals would drive up its value.
“Tariffs cause a stronger dollar, so a weaker dollar with tariffs – it’s an economic abnormality,” Bessent said in a Bloomberg TV interview, agreeing with the analysis of many economists.
In a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Bessent said Trump’s election “drove the largest single-day increase in the US dollar in more than two years, and third largest in the last decade.”
“This is a vote of confidence in US leadership internationally and in the dollar as the world’s reserve currency,” he said.
He has criticized President Joe Biden’s administration for its management of federal debt financing, and has talked about expanding its “friendshoring” policy to create a tiered system among trade partners.