Scott Bessent Is in Denial – and the Bond Market Is Watching

Economics

Jan 22, 2026

Desmond Lachman

Far from warning Donald Trump against undermining foreign investors’ confidence in the US, his Treasury secretary is backing the president and downplaying the risks of a bond selloff. But markets are telling a different story.

WASHINGTON, DC – Where you stand on an issue, the late US bureaucrat Rufus E. Miles, Jr., observed in 1948, depends on where you sit. Scott Bessent, the former hedge-fund operator now serving as US President Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary, personifies this dictum.