Two things of note regarding the Treasury Department: 1. There’s a new executive order coming that will require banks to collect citizenship data on their customers. 2. Secretary Scott Bessent doesn’t think now is a good time to cut the interest rates. That fiscal battle has been one on social media, where Trump has lambasted Fed Chair Jerome Powell for not cutting the rates last year. He’s out in May of 2026. It’s almost here, but now, given Operation Epic Fury, Bessent isn’t keen on cutting the rates right now (via Semafor):
The Federal Reserve should “wait and see” before deciding whether to lower interest rates amid the war in Iran, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday at Semafor World Economy in Washington, DC.
“In terms of: Do I think rates should be lowered? Eventually. I think now that we have to wait and see; we have to wait and see what happens to the economy,” Bessent told Semafor Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith. “But I think as we went into January [and] came out of January and February — the economy was very strong.”
US President Donald Trump has spent much of his second administration lobbying for lower interest rates. For now, the Fed is “doing the right thing by sitting and watching” how the Iran conflict plays out, Bessent said.
“I would be shocked, for instance, if [the European Central Bank] hiked [interest rates],” Bessent said. “Although I will say that many European countries, [like] the UK, and Asian countries, are subsidizing demand, which we haven’t done in the US.”
[…]
In a 23-minute interview at the Semafor World Economy’s inaugural Treasury Secretary Dinner at the Library of Congress, Bessent weighed in on a range of other subjects including:
A forthcoming executive order requiring banks to collect citizenship information on their customers: “It’s in process. And I don’t think it’s unreasonable, because: Why don’t we have information on who’s in our banking system? I have a place in the UK; they want to know who lives in every apartment — and how do we know that it’s not part of a foreign terrorist organization?”
Will Trump agree on the rates? The new executive order for banks is solid though.
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