Bessent Shrugs Off Market Chaos: Retirees ‘Not Worried’
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent downplayed concerns about Americans’ retirement savings amid last week’s market plunge, characterizing worries about retirement funds as a “false narrative” during a Sunday interview. His comments come as the administration faces mounting criticism over the economic impact of President Trump’s sweeping tariff policy that triggered one of the most significant market selloffs since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Americans who want to retire right now, the Americans who put away for years in their savings accounts, I think they don’t look at the day-to-day fluctuations,” Bessent told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker, according to NBC News. “In fact, most Americans don’t have everything in the market.”
The Treasury Secretary maintained that stock market investments should be viewed through a long-term lens rather than daily or weekly fluctuations. “The reason the stock market is considered a good investment is because it’s a long-term investment. If you look day to day, week to week, it’s very risky. Over the long term, it’s a good investment,” he stated, projecting confidence that the administration is “building the long-term economic fundamentals for prosperity.”
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Democrats Fire Back
Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) delivered a scathing rebuke of both Bessent’s remarks and the president’s activities during the market turmoil. “The treasury secretary saying that people aren’t looking at where the retirement savings are — maybe he doesn’t have to. He’s got the wealth; he doesn’t have to. Maybe the president, with his wealth, doesn’t have to. But what I’m hearing from Californians is those who have just retired, those who are on the eve of retiring, they’re terrified of this,” Schiff said.
The California senator painted a vivid contrast between Americans watching their “retirement savings on fire” while the president spent the weekend golfing at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. “That may end up the most enduring image of the Trump presidency. That is the president out of the golf cart while people’s retirement is in flames,” Schiff remarked.
🇺🇸 SEC. BESSENT: TRUMP’S 20% CHINA TARIFFS ONLY RAISED PRICES 0.7%—THAT’S A WIN
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) April 6, 2025
"If we look at data from Trump's first term, a study showed a 20% tariff on China led to a 0.7% price level increase over four years.
Oil prices went down almost 15% in two days, impacting working… https://t.co/5B3JWiWJmi pic.twitter.com/VBUuUaBg8y
Administration Defends Tariff Policy
Bessent expressed little concern about the market’s negative reaction to Trump’s tariff announcement, which imposed levies as high as 54% on some of America’s largest trading partners. “The market consistently underestimates Donald Trump,” he asserted, framing the current situation as an “adjustment process” comparable to economic transitions during the Reagan administration.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins echoed this sentiment in a separate CNN interview, stating: “We knew there would be uncertainty. But to take Thursday or Friday… and to say, ‘Oh, the world is ending. The markets are crashing’ — the markets are adjusting.”
When pressed on how long Americans would need to endure economic uncertainty, Bessent provided no specific timeline but emphasized the administration would “hold the course” to impose the tariffs and address inflation. He placed blame on the “unsustainable system” of trade that preceded the current administration, claiming, “Our trading partners have taken advantage of us. We can see that through the large surpluses. We can see this through the large budget deficits.”
Mixed Messages on Consumer Impact
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett offered somewhat contradictory messaging regarding the tariffs’ impact on consumer prices during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.” Initially suggesting other countries would bear the brunt of tariff costs, Hassett later acknowledged, “Well, there might be some increase in prices,” while arguing the previous trade approach had already diminished Americans’ real wages.
“If cheap goods were the answer, if cheap goods were going to make America’s real wages, real welfare better off, then real incomes would have gone up,” Hassett said. “Instead, they went down because wages went down more than prices went down. So we got the cheap goods at the grocery store, but then we had fewer jobs.”
The administration’s economic messaging comes as Trump himself has urged Americans to “hang tough” through market volatility. “THIS IS AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION, AND WE WILL WIN. HANG TOUGH, it won’t be easy, but the end result will be historic,” the president wrote on Truth Social Saturday as markets continued their decline.
As the administration prepares to implement the next phase of tariffs on April 9, economists and market analysts remain divided on whether the short-term pain will yield the long-term benefits promised by Bessent and his colleagues.
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