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Scott Bessent faced questioning by lawmakers from the Senate Finance Committee earlier Thursday as part of his confirmation hearing as a Trump Cabinet nominee. With President-elect Donald Trump's proposed tariff policies making waves ahead of his re-entry into the White House, Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) turns his attention to the actions the US can take against Russia through sanctions on oil (CL=F, BZ=F).
"I feel very strongly that we cannot reward Vladimir Putin's... aggressive, outrageous behavior in Ukraine," Warner says to the US Department of the Treasury Secretary nominee.
"Any role that Treasury can play in that, if confirmed, I would like to do as we discussed. I believe that the [Biden administration's] sanctions were not fulsome enough," Bessent responds, adding: "The previous administration was worried about raising US energy prices during an election season, and I am perplexed to see that National Security Adviser [Jake] Sullivan, on his way out the door, is raising the sanctions level on Russian oil companies and indeed the oil prices."
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Bessent affirms that under the incoming Trump administration, he will be "100% on board for taking sanctions up" as part of Trump's strategy to end the Russia-Ukraine War.
Watch Scott Bessent's confirmation hearing in full by clicking here, while staying up to date with all the market news and economic data covered by Yahoo Finance.
This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.