Bessent sees one or two more Fed chair interviews this week

[WASHINGTON] Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said there are one or two more interviews this week for the next chair of the US Federal Reserve, with a likely announcement by US President Donald Trump sometime in early January.

“It’s at the president’s pace,” Bessent said on Fox Business on Tuesday (Dec 16). “He has been very, very deliberate,” and also “very direct with the candidates in the interviews in terms of asking them their views on Fed policy, Fed structure, the way forward, the economy.”

The Treasury chief said his guess was an announcement will be in “early January”. He did not specify who is set to be interviewed this week.

Trump is slated to interview Fed governor Chris Waller on Wednesday for the chair job, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources.

“President Trump remains committed to nominating the best and most qualified individuals to turn the Biden economic disaster around,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement. “Until an announcement is made by President Trump, however, any reporting about the Federal Reserve chairman nominations process is pointless speculation.”

Bessent earlier Tuesday praised two candidates, National Economic Director Kevin Hassett and former Fed governor Kevin Warsh as “very, very qualified”. Trump said in The Wall Street Journal interview on Friday that those two are his top choices, the newspaper said.

Bessent also rejected “this idea that Kevin Hassett should be disqualified” out of concern he wouldn’t have the ability to make his own decisions should he go on to succeed Fed chair Jerome Powell, whose term at the US central bank’s helm ends in May.

Tax refunds

Other top economic aides serving in past administrations went on to leadership positions at the Fed, including Janet Yellen, who had served as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Clinton administration, Bessent noted. He dismissed “this idea that people don’t have agency and can’t make up their own minds”.

Trump asked in one interview why the Fed needed hundreds of PhD economists, Bessent said. “There wasn’t a good answer.”

Separately, Bessent said that he expects US$100 billion to US$150 billion of tax refunds in the first quarter of next year, helping to juice economic growth. US gross domestic product should end this year with a 3.5 per cent expansion, he also said.

Turning to China, Bessent said that thus far it has “done everything we negotiated” with regard to the trade truce. He reiterated that Chinese policymakers need to boost their domestic demand, and that it’s unsustainable for Beijing to keep running the trade surpluses it’s racking up.

“The world cannot have a China that has a trillion US dollar trade surplus,” Bessent said. BLOOMBERG