Treasury Secretary Bessent makes a sales pitch to investors

Bloomberg News

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told a roomful of investors at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills that President Donald Trump will make America more appealing for investors.

Bessent's speech, the conference's opener, was a sales pitch for the changes the Trump administration wants to make to the U.S. economy. Tariff's, tax cuts and deregulation are the cornerstones of Trump's America First vision, Bessent said.

"We have uprooted government waste and harmful regulations," Bessent said. "We have planted the seeds of private investment. We have fertilized the ground with fresh tax legislation. Next, we harvest. And we want you to harvest with us."

The tone of this year's Milken Institute Global Conference, considered the Davos of the West, was set by expectations around Bessent's opening speech and the closing fireside chat Wednesday between Citadel's Ken Griffin and Milken Chair Michael Milken.

Milken also conducted an interview with Bessent following his speech.

Bessent foreshadowed his speech with an opinion piece in Sunday's Wall Street Journal where he argued that Trump's tariffs, tax cuts and deregulation efforts make up a coherent strategy to benefit Main Street.

"The president recognizes the critical role Wall Street plays in financing the American dream, but it's Main Street's turn to share in the prosperity," Bessent wrote. "This is the guiding method of his bold economic agenda."

Trump's three steps to allowing Wall Street and Main Street to rise together are rebalancing global trade, restoring America's industrial base and building an economy that allows Wall Street and Main Street to rise together, he said.

The markets have been waiting for developments in negotiations with key trading partners Trump claimed were underway on April 9 when he paused tariffs after they resulted in a steep decline in the stock market and a sell-off in munis.

Citadel's Griffin, founder of one of the largest hedge funds, has warned that Trump's trade war is hurting America's brand and that continued upheaval could weaken the U.S.' global standing and harm financial markets.

At the Semafor World Economy Summit in Washington, D.C., last month, Griffin said traders are concerned about parking their investments in the U.S., particularly U.S. Treasury bonds, because Trump's tariffs have destroyed faith that America will remain a trusted and rational actor in global financial markets.

Bessent's seeming response in his speech to the recent market shock waves was to tick off economic upheavals dating back to the 1920s Great Depression the U.S. has weathered, before quoting Warren Buffet in saying, "Never bet against America. The American economy is unstoppable."

"On a long-term horizon, it's never a bad time to invest in America — and especially now," Bessent said.

"The Trump agenda is more than the sum of our parts," Bessent said. "It will solidify our position as the home of global capital. His policies mean more jobs, more homes, more manufacturing plants … more economic security, more innovation. In short, more of all the things we need the most."

That agenda includes putting pressure on state and local governments to deregulate to make it easier to build, Bessent said. He pointed to a developer's comment that it took two years from inception to ribbon cutting for a project in Texas, while in Illinois seven years into the project, it's still at the discussion stage.

"We want everywhere to look more like Texas," he said.

The overarching goal of Trump's agenda, Bessent said, is to reprivatize the U.S. government in order to decrease the deficit by 1% a year, so the country returns to a 3% deficit to gross domestic product ratio by the time Trump leaves office, Bessent said. "We are decreasing the role of government in the economy, by right-sizing government spending and then through deregulation refinancing the private sector."