U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent speaks to reporters before walking into the White House in Washington, D.C., on March 13, 2025.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Sunday dismissed concerns Americans might be having about a potential impending recession and the status of their retirement plans, saying that President Donald Trump and his administration are “building the long-term economic fundamentals for prosperity.”
During an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” Bessent called it a “false narrative” that Americans who are close to retiring may be reticent to do so after their retirement savings may have dropped this week due to the stock market downturn.
“I think that’s a false narrative,” he told moderator Kristen Welker. “Americans who want to retire right now, the Americans who put away for years in their savings accounts, I think they don’t look at the day-to-day fluctuations.”
“In fact, most Americans don’t have everything in the market,” Bessent added. “People have a long-term view … the reason the stock market is considered a good investment is because it’s a long-term investment. If you look day to day, week to week, it’s very risky. Over the long term, it’s a good investment.”
Bessent said he wasn’t concerned about the stock market’s negative reaction this week to Trump’s announcement that he was imposing tariffs as high as 54% on the U.S.’ largest trading partners
“The market consistently underestimates Donald Trump,” Bessent told Welker.
He added later in the interview, “Who knows how the market is going to react in a day, in a week. What we are looking at is building the long-term economic fundamentals for prosperity and I think the previous administration had put us on the course toward financial calamity.”
In the days following Trump’s tariff announcement, the U.S. stock market plunged, with the Nasdaq, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 marking losses that haven’t been seen since the start of the Covid pandemic.
On Saturday, in the wake of the market downturn, Trump defended his tariff plan, urging consumers and investors to “hang tough.”
“We are bringing back jobs and businesses like never before. Already, more than FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS OF INVESTMENT, and rising fast! THIS IS AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION, AND WE WILL WIN. HANG TOUGH, it won’t be easy, but the end result will be historic,” the president wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Asked about how long Americans will have to live with this economic uncertainty and “hang tough,” Bessent said that the Trump administration is “going to hold the course” to impose the tariffs and bring down inflation but didn’t say how long that would take.
“This is an adjustment process,” he said. “What we saw with President [Ronald] Reagan when he brought down the great inflation, and we got past the [President Jimmy] Carter malaise, there was some choppiness at that time, but he held the course, and we’re going to hold the course.”
Bessent added that the previous “unsustainable system” of trade was also to blame for today’s economic uncertainties, telling Welker that “this has been years in the building, years in the making, this unsustainable system.”
“Our trading partners have taken advantage of us. We can see that through the large surpluses. We can see this through the large budget deficits,” the secretary said.
