BURSTTreasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday he’d be open to replacing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell as President Trump looks to replace the central bank chief as soon as possible.
Asked if it’s a job he would want to do, Bessent said he would comply with Trump’s wishes.
“I will do what the President wants,” he said in a TV interview with Bloomberg News, adding that he was happy with his current position as Treasury secretary.
Multiple names about Powell’s successor have been floated in Washington policy circles.
In addition to Bessent, they include current Fed Governor Christopher Waller, Fed Vice Chair of Supervision Michelle Bowman, White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, and former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh.
Powell’s term as Fed chair ends in May of next year, though his term as a member of the board of governors doesn’t end until 2028.
Tensions between Powell and Trump have been flaring in recent months as Trump has increasingly called for the Fed to cut interest rates while central bankers, wary of increasing inflation, have kept rates steady.
Warnings about higher inflation coming from President Trump’s tariffs have proliferated among economic forecasters.
Inflation ticked up to a 2.4-percent annual increase in May from 2.3 percent in April.
Powell has said he wants to see where exactly the cost of tariffs are going to be borne in various value chains before he makes a move on rates. Tariffs could be borne by manufacturers, exporters, importers, or retailers, who could take them out of margins.
Alternatively, they could end up being passed onto shoppers, driving prices higher. The Fed has left interest rates higher as a buffer against that possibility.
Trump, who wants to see the economy stimulated along with lower financing costs, has fumed on social media about having lower interest rates.
“We should be at least two to three points lower. Would save the USA 800 billion dollars per year, plus. What a difference this would make,” he wrote last week.
Trump’s anger toward Powell has tempered somewhat from earlier in the year, when he was openly calling for his removal.
“Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!” Trump wrote in an early morning social media post in April.
Since then, the stock market has come roaring back after losses spurred by Trump’s trade war, which saw triple-digit tariffs imposed on top U.S. trading partner China.
The Standard and Poor’s 500 index of stocks hit a new high last week and continued its rally in Monday morning trading after China confirmed the contours of a new trade deal between itself and the U.S.
Tariff levels on China look to be set at an overall level of 55 percent, including tariffs from the first Trump administration. Calculations from the Peterson Institute put the level at 51.1 percent.
The overall U.S. tariff rate is now at 14.1 percent, according to ratings agency Fitch.
Bessent said Monday that he’s expecting a “flurry” of additional trade deals to be announced soon, including with a group of “key 18” countries ahead of a U.S. imposed deadline of July 9.
“There’s going to be a flurry going into the final week as the pressure increases,” Bessent said. “Whether it’s at Treasury, at USTR, at Commerce — people who’ve been around for 20 years are in amazement, and they’re saying that countries are coming with offers that they can’t believe.”
“All these countries are pulling back,” he added.