Scott Bessent, President Donald Trump’s Treasury secretary, staunchly defended the use of tariffs at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit, in conversation with Andrew Ross Sorkin, strongly asserting he does not believe tariffs are a tax. He pivoted the debate by challenging Democrats who claim tariffs are inflationary to instead “join me and cut taxes, and that will be disinflationary.”
Bessent argued that, behind the scenes, a “huge number” of Democrats are actually in favor of tariffs but can’t say so because they’ve been labeled “the Trump tariffs,” forcing them to avoid deviating “from the hive.” And he insisted he has gotten “a couple of Democrats” to walk into his “bear trap” with their argument tariffs act as a tax. By their own logic, Bessent insisted, if they truly believe taxes are inflationary and therefore bad, they should do the obvious: “So you believe taxes are inflationary. So join me and cut taxes, and that will be disinflationary.”
As Bessent and Sorkin jousted, the Treasury secretary tangled with the big (non-AI-related) economic quandary of 2025. Tariffs are paid by U.S. companies and consumers, and are difficult to distinguish from a tax. They appear to have revived inflationary pressures that were on the wane when Trump was reelected, and they are part of a larger trade tangle with China dating back nearly a decade. But the Trump administration has refused to drop its commitment to them, even if they are turning out far different from when Trump announced worldwide “reciprocal tariffs” in April.
