Americans should not fear recession as a result of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on almost every U.S. trading partner, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Sunday.
“There doesn’t have to be a recession. 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,” Bessent said on NBC News’ Meet the Press.
In what he branded “Liberation Day,” Trump enacted tariffs on U.S. imports and “reciprocal” tariffs as high as 54 percent on 180 countries based on his supposed authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA). Stocks plummeted after the announcement, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average saw its lowest numbers since 2020, and the Trump administration has since faced fierce backlash.
Bessent has described the tariffs as measures that will “escalate to de-escalate,” and has called them necessary negotiating tools. The former hedge fund manager said on Sunday that fears over retirement plans and a possible recession are a “false narrative.”
“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,” Bessent said.
“In fact, most Americans don’t have everything in the market. 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.”
Trump’s economic plans are “building the long-term economic fundamentals for prosperity,” he added. Last week, the president encouraged investors and Americans to “hang tough” during the economic uncertainty, adding that it “wouldn’t be easy,” but “the end result will be historic.”
“This is an adjustment process,” Bessent agreed. “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.”
“Our trading partners have taken advantage of us,” he added. “We can see that through the large surpluses. We can see this through the large budget deficits.”