Scott Bessent walked into the Treasury Department with a clear mission: bring down long-term borrowing costs for the US government. The bond market, apparently, did not get the memo.
The 10-year Treasury yield surpassed 4.5% in April 2025, a level that makes everything from mortgages to corporate debt more expensive. It later pulled back near 4.4%.
The trillion-dollar math problem
Bessent himself has stated that a 100 basis point drop in 10-year yields translates to roughly $1 trillion in savings.
Bessent was confirmed by the Senate on January 27, 2025, and sworn in the following day. His strategy for achieving lower yields rested on a few pillars: enforcing spending restraint through the Department of Government Efficiency, revising tax policies, and carefully managing how the government issues its debt.
