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Scott Bessent faces questioning by lawmakers from the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday as part of his confirmation hearing as a Trump Cabinet nominee.
Senator Ron Wyden (D-Or.) — the committee's ranking member — asked the US Treasury Secretary candidate that if President-elect Donald Trump were to deploy his proposed tariff policies in office, would American workers and businesses be the ones footing the bill for these import taxes?
"The history of tariffs and tariff theory, optimal tariff theory, does not support what you're saying," Bessent answers, citing appreciation in the US dollar (DX=F, DX-Y.NYB) and price elasticities as one of the offsetting factors. "Foreign manufacturers, especially China... will continue cutting prices to maintain market share."
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This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.
