Before Scott Bessent became Treasury secretary, he told his hedge fund investors that President Trump’s tariff gun would be rarely discharged if he won a second term.
Mr. Bessent labeled tariffs “inflationary” and argued that a weak dollar strategy, which makes American products cheaper to sell around the world, would be preferable to tariffs given Mr. Trump’s focus on narrowing the gap between what the United States sells abroad and what it imports.
But as Mr. Trump’s top economic spokesman, Mr. Bessent has become the administration’s most prominent public defender of the tariffs that he once doubted. As the White House grapples with growing frustration about high prices, it has begun scaling back some of the tariffs to help lower costs.
That has put Mr. Bessent in an awkward position as he tries to portray Mr. Trump’s tariffs as harmless and insist that inflation is under control. At times, he has found creative and novel ways to try and convince price-weary Americans that the administration’s policies are working for them.
A Fox News poll this month found that 76 percent of voters had a negative view of the economy under Mr. Trump. That rating was lower than it was under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. at the end of his term. Only 35 percent of the Americans surveyed approved of Mr. Trump’s tariffs, and less than a fifth believed that inflation had been contained.
During an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program on Sunday, Mr. Bessent downplayed the severity of inflation in the United States and defended Mr. Trump’s use of tariffs.
“So inflation hasn’t gone up,” Mr. Bessent said when asked about consumer prices rising to 3 percent from 2 percent in April, when Mr. Trump rolled out sweeping global tariffs.
The Treasury secretary said that most of the price increases that Americans were seeing came from the rising prices of services rather than imported goods, which he argued were mostly flat. While inflation for many services such as medical care and haircuts have outpaced price increases for goods, inflation for many products such as apparel, tires and furnishings have been rising.
Mr. Bessent suggested that if consumers were not happy with inflation where they live, they should move to Republican-led states where he said that inflation was slightly lower.
“You know the best way to bring your inflation rate down?” Mr. Bessent said. “Move from a blue state to a red state.”
The cost of living in red states, which tend to be more rural, is often lower than in blue states with larger urban centers. However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not track state level inflation data beyond metropolitan areas. Mr. Bessent’s comments also appeared to overlook the expense of moving, which is especially costly given high mortgage rates.
Mr. Bessent has stifled his skepticism about tariffs since being tapped by Mr. Trump for the Treasury role last November. In a radio interview with Larry Kudlow in late 2024, Mr. Bessent argued that tariffs actually did not fuel inflation.
“Tariffs can’t be inflationary, because if the price of one thing goes up, unless you give people more money, then they have less money to spend on the other thing, so there is no inflation,” Mr. Bessent said. He blamed government spending or an increase in the money supply for rising prices.
In March, Mr. Bessent tweaked his take on tariffs again. Speaking at the Economic Club of New York, the Treasury secretary allowed that tariffs could impose a “one-time price adjustment” on consumers, but said that they would not have a meaningful effect on inflation because mortgage rates and energy prices would fall under Mr. Trump.
“Across the continuum, I’m not worried about inflation,” he said.
Mr. Bessent also suggested that if the tariffs, which are intended to shift more production to the United States, resulted in consumer products like televisions costing more, that Americans should patriotically embrace that.
“Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream,” he said.
Mr. Trump has cited a range of reasons for his tariffs, which has made defending them something of a moving target. The primary reason seems to be pushing more companies to make their products in the United States and lowering the trade deficit, which is the gap between what America imports and what it exports. But the president has also used the tariffs to compel other countries to open their markets to American exports and as an alternative to economic sanctions.
To calm the market volatility after Mr. Trump rolled out his “Liberation Day” tariffs in early April, Mr. Bessent urged the president to focus on the goal of the trade strategy — which is to “rebalance” global trade and protect American industries — and to emphasize that the tariffs could be removed as trade deals were signed and manufacturers built plants in the United States.
As a way to illustrate that the tariffs were not meant to be eternal, Mr. Bessent described them in April as a “melting ice cube” that would dissipate over time, allowing additional tariff revenue to shift to corporate tax revenue.
Trump administration officials have faced challenges similar to those that Mr. Biden and his economic advisers experienced in convincing Americans that they should be enthusiastic about the economy.
Stephen Moore, a former economic adviser to Mr. Trump, said that grocery items, such as coffee, that have become more expensive were not really buttressing inflation in a substantial way overall. But consumers notice the costs of such products and feel sticker shock.
“I think people’s attitudes about the economy and the cost of living is a perception problem,” Mr. Moore said in an interview. “But in politics, perception is reality.”
Trump administration officials have been trying to reframe how they talk about the economy to change those perceptions.
Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council, said on CNBC last week that purchasing power had improved under the Trump administration because wage increases were outpacing inflation. He said that the Biden administration should be blamed for lingering high prices.
The White House has also been playing up the possibility that Americans will receive $2,000 tariff rebate checks next year, a move that might make them more popular.
“One of the ways to prove to the American people how great tariffs are is to have them share in a part of one year’s income from these tariffs, and that’s $2,000 a head for people who need the money,” Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, said on the Fox Business Network this week.
But those checks could exacerbate inflation by giving people more money to spend. As a result, Mr. Bessent has suggested that the Trump administration could convince Americans to save or invest the money.
Perhaps the most challenging thing for the Trump administration to convey is why reducing tariffs will lower prices when imposing them does not raise costs.
Asked to make sense of that on Sunday, Mr. Bessent likened the economy to the human body as he attempted to explain.
“How much does your arm weigh?” Mr. Bessent asked the NBC host, Kristen Welker. She said she was not sure.
“But you know how much you weigh, and you get on the scale every morning,” Mr. Bessent responded, making the point that the administration is trying to lower the prices of items that it can. “Inflation is a composite number. And we look at everything.”
The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Alan Rappeport is an economic policy reporter for The Times, based in Washington. He covers the Treasury Department and writes about taxes, trade and fiscal matters.
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