March 16 (UPI) — The Trump administration is focused on averting a financial crisis that could result from government overspending, the treasury secretary said Sunday.
“What I could guarantee is we would have had a financial crisis. I’ve studied it, I’ve taught it, and if we had kept up at these spending levels that — everything was unsustainable,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We are resetting, and we are putting things on a sustainable path.”
Despite President Donald Trump’s aggressive efforts to slash the size of the federal government with massive agency and department layoffs led by his Department of Government Efficiency, the economic picture in the U.S. worsened during the first two months of his administration as the budget shortfall eclipsed the $1 trillion mark in February.
Bessent said Sunday that despite the aggressive cuts and staff layoffs, he could not guarantee that the U.S. would not slip into a recession.
Trump has also injected uncertainty into the international economic picture by introducing tariffs on historical trading partners including Canada and Mexico.
The S&P 500 dropped 10% on Thursday in response to the volatility. In his latest move, Trump imposed a 200% tariff on European Union alcohol exports, including all wines and French champagnes, unless the EU dropped its counter tariffs.
