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In the next week, President-elect Trump will select an economic team responsible for shaping his second term’s economic agenda. The economy faces a number of critical headwinds. First, core inflation, which is slow to change, remains ominously high at 2.7%, nearly 35% higher than the Fed’s long-term target. Second, the US peacetime deficit is nearing 2 trillion dollars per year. Despite this enormous spending and the U.S. being near the top of the business cycle, prime-age male labor force participation has declined for more than 60 years. Geopolitically, the unipolar moment has come to an end. The days when an Undersecretary of the Treasury could request and expect to receive secret key trade concessionsfrom an ally at a hotel dinner have long past. To the extent that we intend to continue to use the US dollar as a tool of geopolitical leverage, we must do so sparingly and effectively. Finally, the Biden-Harris regime has badly assaulted the American economy and American worker with open borders, misguided fiscal and monetary central planning, and a deranged social agenda that would gladly sacrifice the greenback for the job-destroying scam of the green new deal.

Navigating these challenges will require someone with a mastery of international finance and trade, demonstrated loyalty to the President-elect, and creativity. Enter Scott Bessent. A top contender for the US Treasury Secretary, a source close to President Trump describes him as “Central casting plus loyal.” Scott Bessent was born to a modest family in South Carolina but completed his BA at Yale in 1984. After interning with legendary financier Jim Rogers, he worked with the who’s who in global finance, including Jim Chanos and George Soros. He became a partner at the London office of the Quantum Fund, where he masterminded a legendary trade that netted over $1 billion in 1992. In the early 2010s, he made a number of spectacular and successful bets in the currency arena. Despite being groomed as Soros’s successor, he parted ways with Soros Fund Management to start his own fund in 2015, the Key Square Group, which consistently beat the market. Along the way, he taught economic and financial history at Yale.

Those who might have concerns with Bessent’s previous Soros affiliation need not worry, in our view. We at Revolver News have chronicled perhaps more than anyone Soros’ devastating political legacy in the world, as a result of which Soros funded an individual who worked full time to get our reporting banned from email lists and advertisers. For all of Soros’ nefarious political activity, however, there is no question that he is one of the most skilled financiers of the past century. That Bessent has worked with Soros and several other top players in the financial (not political) arena in the past simply confirms that Bessent possesses a top-tier understanding of financial markets at the highest levels. This understanding, when channeled to the political benefit of America (rather than its destruction as with Soros), is exactly what our country needs at the moment. Trump, who appreciates more than anyone that you need people who understand the system in order to have the system work to the American people’s benefit, has praised Bessent as “one of the most brilliant men on Wall Street” and “respected by everybody.”

For the small handful still concerned about the Soros affiliation, we would only remind you that the great populist-nationalist leader Viktor Orban was originally funded by Soros. For that matter, Robert Mercer, one of Trump’s key backers in 2016, made much of his fortune in a fund partnered with another prominent Democrat backer, mathematician Jim Simmons.

As mentioned, Bessent’s international career has brought him into contact with central bankers, finance ministers, and heads of state from around the world. His long experience with international bond and currency markets means that no contender for the U.S. Treasury’s top spot understands the contours of the international financial system and the weaknesses of other countries’ financial and trade networks better than Bessent. Unlike the other contenders for the role, Bessent supported Trump’s immigration and tariff policy. He is perhaps the only potential player at the U.S. Treasury who could plausibly implement these policies without destroying the global trade system. If the U.S. implements an across-the-board tariff, preventing retaliation from our major trading partners will be key, and Bessent is the only candidate for the Treasury Secretary position who has given serious thought about how to do this.

Unlike much of the economic team in Trump’s first term, e.g., Gary Cohn and Dina Powell, Bessent broke with Wall Street in 2016 to raise $1 million dollars for President Trump’s first presidential inaugural committee and several million dollars for his second successful campaign. He advised Trump in the 2024 election and, it almost goes without saying, has been on the record as opposing Biden’s inflationary central planning proposals, including green energy and DIE mandates across the federal government. Because Bessent’s agenda is so aligned with the President-elect, central bankers and financial ministers regard him as a potential “Trump whisperer” to gain insight into the future direction of U.S. economic policy. He opposed Harris’s rapacious taxes on unrealized capital gains and has claimed that it would be a priority to maintain as much of the Trump 2017 tax cuts as possible. The Biden administration’s fiscal and tax policies were aimed at transferring income to green energy companies, which are likely to be eliminated in total under Bessent, who has emphasized a need to return to political neutrality when it comes to fiscal policy.

The most important talent Bessent brings to the table is his capability to go toe-to-toe with finance ministers and central bankers in the US. Jerome Powell, the current chief central banker of the U.S., has proven to be one of President Trump’s most intransigent opponents (Trump has laid everyone else to waste). Trump will have a chance to replace him in 2026, but faces the challenge of a Fed undermining Trump’s fiscal policy in the meantime. Only one person in Trump’s coterie proposed a plausible remedy: Scott Bessent. Bessent’s clever idea is to nominate a shadow Fed in 2025 and have the candidates propose monetary policy aligned with the incoming White House’s preferences. This enables Trump to sidestep Jerome Powell until he can be legally replaced. The proposal is simultaneously unprecedented yet legal and, most observers believe, likely to neutralize any interest rate shocks that Powell implements.

There will be many difficult decisions to make in Trump’s second term, but happily, selecting a future Treasury Secretary is not one of them. Revolver News is happy to endorse Scott Bessent for the US.’s chief financial officer.

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