US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Sunday struck a defiant tone in the face of global financial markets selling off sharply in response to new US tariffs, arguing the new duties were necessary and rejecting the idea that they would cause a US recession.
“I see no reason that we have to price in a recession,” Bessent told NBC’s Meet the Press with Kristen Welker.
Bessent gave no indication that President Donald Trump was willing to back down on the sweeping new tariffs he introduced last week. He said more than 50 countries had called the administration seeking negotiations, but any talks are going to take time.
From the US perspective, other countries “have been bad actors for a long time,” Bessent said, adding that the issues could not be negotiated away in a matter of days or weeks.
“We’re going to have to see what the countries offer and if it’s believable,” he said. “I think we are going to have to see the path forward.”
He added, “After decades of “bad behavior you can’t just wipe the slate clean.”
Bessent’s efforts to calm the markets came the day after an additional 10% duty on all US imports went into effect Saturday. Additional tailored tariffs of up to 50% are due to go into effect on imports from roughly 60 countries on Wednesday.
The announced tariffs will take US import taxes to their highest level in more than a century and have prompted widespread downgrades in growth expectations for the US and global economies. Economists at JPMorgan on Friday said they now expect the US to slip into a recession this year.
Trump, who has spent the weekend fielding phone calls and competing in the club championship at his Florida golf club, has said he wants to reshape the global economy in America’s advantage. He argues that the tariffs will bring a wave of new investments as companies build new factories in the US, bringing jobs and wealth home to the US.
The main target of his ire is a US trade deficit in goods that topped $1 trillion last year. In the past two trading days US equities lost $5 trillion in value as investors sold off stocks in anticipation of a US and global economic slowdown.