Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was a guest on CNBC’s Squawk Box this morning and covered a lot of ground including the interest rates, the China trade talks, AI accountability and the President’s decision to ban the White House press corps of MS NOW, CNN and Politico.
Bessent, in an interview that aired Monday morning on CNBC’s Squawk Box, shrugged off last week’s decision by the Federal Reserve to increase interest rates to 3.75% to 4% — its first rate hike since February 2023. “Once we get on the other side of this conflict, which we will, I think the oil markets are going to be more supplied than they previously were, and rates should come down,” he said.
Right now the 10-year note is yielding at 5% plus or minus on the treasuries. That’s up 100 basis points since the war with Iran began in late February. He admitted that the Treasury Department’s $5 billion plus buyback of 10- and 20-year notes on September 10 did nothing to bring down the yields on long-term bonds in the aftermath of the announcement. However, he said they would have gone up even more without the announcement.
“Since President Trump has come in, the U.S. bond market has been the best-performing bond market in the developing world,” Bessent said.
The official also spoke at length about his 12-hour meeting on Sunday with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng ahead of the Trump-Xi summit at the White House later this week. He outlined a safety framework for AI with He and established a channel to deal with any future incidents — whether caused by “uncontrollable agents,” nonstate cyber attackers, or even bioweapons. He also spoke about the November 10 expiration of the U.S.-China trade truce and how Iran’s biggest trading partner is China.
Hellbound and Down 