Treasury Secretary Bessent says tariffs aimed at bringing manufacturing back to US

WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump’s tariff plans are largely aimed at bringing manufacturing back to the US, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox Business on Feb 5, singling out medical supplies and shipbuilding as targeted sectors.

Mr Bessent said Mr Trump was pursuing different strategies with different tariffs, noting that

recent tariff threats

against Colombia, Mexico and Canada were aimed at ensuring action by those governments on non-trade issues such as immigration.

Those actions were not aimed at raising revenue, but effecting change in the targeted countries, he said.

Overall, however, he said tariffs were focused on helping re-establish manufacturing in the US in key sectors, which should boost corporate revenue and ultimately result in declining income from the tariffs themselves.

“Tariffs are a means to an end, and I think that end is bringing the manufacturing base back to the US,” he said.

“In theory, tariffs would be a shrinking ice cube. That you would tariff a country and then as the production comes back to the US, the income tax – the corporate revenues and the paid income tax – goes up and the tariff income would go down.”

Mr Trump has said Mr Bessent will be a core part of his trade team, along with his nominee to head the US Commerce Department, Mr Howard Lutnick, and his nominee for chief trade negotiator, Mr Jamieson Greer.

Mr Bessent, a hedge fund manager and founder of Key Square Capital Management, voiced support for Mr Trump’s plans to impose steep tariffs during his confirmation hearing in January, saying they would combat unfair trade practices, raise revenue and increase US negotiating leverage, including on non-trade issues.

In the Fox interview, Mr Bessent also said that the Treasury’s payment system would not be touched by Mr Elon Musk’s government efficiency team, adding that any decisions to stop payments would be made by other agencies.

The Treasury on Feb 4 said Mr Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) had been granted “read-only access” to its payment system codes but denied that this cut off any government payments including for Social Security or Medicare.

Mr Bessent said a study was being done aimed at creating more accountability, more accuracy and more traceability to ensure money disbursed by the Treasury was going where intended, but payments themselves were “not being touched”.

Any changes to government disbursements would be made by other agencies, not through the Treasury’s payments system.

“In terms of payments being stopped, that is happening upstream at the department level,” he added.

But Mr Bessent lauded Mr Musk’s efforts to cut government spending and said “Doge is not going to fail”, unlike previous government efficiency drives such as the Grace Commission in the 1980s and efforts during Mr Bill Clinton’s administration in the 1990s. REUTERS