WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that he was “not at all” worried about the stock market, which has dipped multiple times amid President Donald Trump’s tariff threats.
“I’ve been in the investment business for 35 years, and I can tell you that corrections are healthy. They’re normal. What’s not healthy is straight up,” Bessent said during an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”
“You get these euphoric markets. That’s how you get a financial crisis,” he added.
Major stock indexes have have seen drops in recent weeks amid Trump’s tariff threats. CNBC previously reported that the S&P 500’s value had decreased by about $5 trillion in three weeks.
Trump has vacillated on tariffs against Canada and Mexico, two of the United States’ closest trading partners, while threatening steep tariffs on other U.S. allies like the European Union. The president has also implemented sweeping tariffs on aluminum and steel. Bessent also confirmed that Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs on other countries will begin on April 2.
“I’m not worried about the markets. Over the long term, if we put good tax policy in place, deregulation and energy security, the markets will do great,” Bessent said.
The stock market fluctuations have sparked fears of longer-term economic issues, and Bessent did not rule out a recession in Sunday’s interview.
“You know that there are no guarantees. Like, who would have predicted Covid, right?” Bessent said.
“So I can predict that we are putting in robust policies that will be durable, and could there be an adjustment,” he said, adding that the country needed to be weaned off of “massive government spending.”
Trump had previously declined to rule out the possibility of a recession and acknowledged that Americans may feel some level of economic pain in response to his policies.
“I hate to predict things like that,” Trump said in a Fox News interview this month when asked whether he was expecting a recession this year. “There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big.”
The president has also said multiple times that the economy could see some level of “disturbance” in response to his tariff policies.
“Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again, and it’s happening, and it will happen rather quickly,” he said during his joint address to Congress this month. “There’ll be a little disturbance, but we’re OK with that. It won’t be much.”
He later repeated that view, telling NBC News that “there could be some disturbance, a little bit of a disturbance.”