Treasury Secretary Bessent: Americans' Spending Doesn't Match Polls
https://www.newsmax.com/us/scott-bessent-polls-trump/2025/04/27/id/1208528/
Sunday, 27 April 2025 03:01 PM EDT
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, responding Sunday to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll showing President Donald Trump's polling numbers on the economy being underwater, said consumers' spending habits don't match up with what the surveys are saying.
"For the past 35 years, my business was analyzing data, so I think we've probably got to dig down into those," Bessent told ABC News "This Week" host Martha Raddatz.
"What I do know is that Americans are behaving very differently from what the surveys say," he added. "So the surveys may say that, but consumers are still spending. So I prefer to look at what Americans are doing rather than how they're answering pollsters."
The poll shows that only 39% of the adults in the country approve of how Trump is handling his job, with 55% who disapprove, including 44% who strongly disapprove.
Bessent, meanwhile, said that he has his doubts about the poll numbers that are coming out. "When I look at the sum of the things that are being published, there was a story 10 days ago that said this is the worst April for the stock market since the Great Depression."
But just 10 days later, the Nasdaq is up, said Bessent, but "I haven't seen a story that says, Oh, the stock market has the biggest bounce back ever."
Bessent also discussed on Sunday Trump's interview with Time magazine, including his comments that he had made 200 deals on tariffs.
"I believe that he is referring to sub-deals within the negotiations we're doing," said Bessent. "If there are 180 countries, there are 18 important trading partners. Let's put China to the side, because that's a special negotiation. There are 17 important trading partners, and we have a process in place, over the next 90 days, to negotiate with them."
Trump, in recent weeks, has announced tariffs only to pull them back, pause them, or make some exceptions, and Bessent said that in "game theory," that is called "strategic uncertainty."
"You're not going to tell the person on the other side of the negotiation where you're going to end up, and nobody's better at creating this leverage than President Trump," said Bessent. "He's shown the high tariffs, and here's the stick. This is where the tariffs can go. And the carrot is, come to us, take off your tariffs, take off your nontariff trade barriers, stop manipulating your currency, stop subsidizing labor and capital, and then we can talk."