Scott Bessent has an unenviable job

IT’S NOT easy being a Cabinet secretary, let alone new to the US government. One must cement relationships with the president and the new White House team, in addition to taking command of a department and its functions, responsibilities and personnel. That is particularly true for Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, sitting only a few hundred yards from the Oval Office.

Roughly a month in, he has had a tumultuous start.

He has a reputation as a fiscal hawk, and America certainly needs to get its budgetary house in order. He is known for his “3-3-3” plan – 3 per cent growth, 3 per cent budget deficit, three-million-barrel increase in daily domestic oil production.