Trump 2.0 is not Trump 1.0, and Wall Street is learning the hard way that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is not Steven Mnuchin, the former Goldman Sachs partner who acted as a buffer between Donald Trump and New York finance in his first term. Yet when Bessent was nominated after a hidden behind-the-scenes battle, it was a sigh of relief for Wall Street: Hadn't Bessent claimed in an interview with the Financial Times that tariffs were first and foremost a negotiating weapon, as Trump was, according to him, a supporter of free trade? The statement almost cost him his position, and Bessent, 62, has since acted with the zeal of a new convert.

The former financier for investor George Soros, a graduate of the prestigious Yale University, is defending Trump's policies and isn't flying to Wall Street's rescue as financiers had hoped. "Corrections are healthy (...) What's not healthy is straight up, that you get these euphoric markets. That's how you get a financial crisis," he declared on Sunday, March 16, on NBC. "Over the long term, if we put good tax policy in place, deregulation and energy security, the markets will do great."

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