Full Transcript: Scott Bessent’s Speech + Press Briefing At G20 Meeting, Asheville

And I think that we have 19 other voices, and as I said, my Chairman’s statement will echo that.

With my discussions with the Canadian Finance Minister, who I have traditionally had a very good line of communication with, we discussed AI, we discussed global imbalances where the Canadians have been very strong, and we discussed how to put the trade situation back together. And I think that’s going to have to be done at the leaders’ level.

REPORTER: Grace with WLOS. I’m Gracie with WLOS. This is obviously being held here in Asheville. I was wondering what you guys plan to do specifically for our recovery in the region.

BESSENT: Well, I think bringing this event to Asheville, including actual dollars spent here and then earned media, it’s estimated that there will be more than $20 million in benefits. And I’ve had numerous of the delegates tell me that they’re here, they’ve never thought of coming to this part of the United States again, and they plan to spend another three or four days.

And just as we’ve seen that many of these global events happen around the world, it actually puts places on the map globally. I’ve grown up coming to this area my entire life. I believe America knows about Asheville. But now I think today, the world — or in the past few days — the world has discovered Asheville.

REPORTER: Bea, AFP. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Bea from AFP news agency. I just wanted to ask, what is your message to your European partners who feel that inviting Russia’s finance minister to Asheville sends a troubling signal given its attacks in Ukraine? And to what degree has the Russian finance minister’s presence impacted the work of the G20 members and also of the G7? Thank you so much.

BESSENT: Well, I would point out that we had 19 out of 20 countries agree, so there has been no impact. And as President Trump says, he likes to get along with everyone. And I think, unfortunately, this horrible conflict between Russia and Ukraine — if the sides don’t talk, if we are not engaged, then how can it be solved?

So I think the perspective here — I know that some Europeans had a sour taste, but I think it’s very important to engage. Otherwise, if both fighters go in a corner, then there will never be a resolution to this horrible conflict. And I will point out that the finance minister who I met with is unsanctioned.

REPORTER: [QUESTION INAUDIBLE] Secretary Bessent, you said U.S. allies support the economic campaign against Iran. What concrete commitments did you secure on secondary sanctions and operational economic outcomes? And are Russia and China among those supporting the efforts?

Iran and China

BESSENT: Well, we’ve had very quiet conversations with Russia and China, and I think we can move that discussion forward. As I said with China, on Iran, we have more in common than we have differences.

China agrees Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. China agrees that there has to be free maritime trade in the Strait of Hormuz. China gets 50% of its energy from the Gulf. So I believe it’s up to China, or incumbent upon China, to work toward a solution. We will see how they follow through.

What I can tell you is that many of our allies came forward and said we will do whatever is necessary because they understand that Iran is in economic death throes, and that the Iranian snake, having had its head cut off, once the body stops contorting, then they will come to the table. So the more they help us, the more they help in this conflict. And they have offered to do whatever they could, whether it is intelligence, economic intelligence, and speaking to any entity that supports this treacherous, evil regime.

REPORTER: Thank you so much, Mr. Secretary. Julie Sarkin with NBC News. Iran, moments ago — right now, actually — is threatening fresh attacks against American —

BESSENT: No. They’re not threatening. They’re doing it. They’re doing it. Yep.

REPORTER: That brings me to my next point. Can you bring Iran to the table while China continues to back them financially?

BESSENT: Well, I think you have bad framing there. So the framing is, first of all, Iran only has about 30 million barrels of oil or crude on the waters now. So that’s a minimal amount, that I think somehow this narrative erupted that — well, if China is not on board. What we’ve had are very productive, quiet conversations here with the Chinese.

And the other thing too is the real problem: the Chinese pay the Iranians in RMB. The RMB comes back to the Gulf Region, and whether it is through neighbors shipping that supplies over, or whether it is through banks — such as the one we put out of business in Dubai on Friday — or whether it is the cash houses, those are being closed down. So when that money cannot be converted to dollars, then the regime will starve.

REPORTER: Thank you, Secretary. Dan Reeves, North State Journal. The other local reporters sort of asked the same question that I was going to ask, but further than that — obviously there’ll be a lot of money coming here because Asheville’s beautiful and all that, tourism dollars and things. But Helene, it’ll be about two years in just a few weeks. Is there anything that was discussed over the weekend that North Carolina farmers, manufacturers, small business owners can expect from policy, like actual dollar examples?

North Carolina and Trade

BESSENT: Look, in terms of — that isn’t this forum. We did have several bilateral conversations, and North Carolina is an ag state, and in our previous trade negotiations with China, we secured large soybean purchases, we secured $17 billion of ag purchases. We are seeing that as other countries grow, then North Carolina will grow with it.

North Carolina is an industrial and manufacturing powerhouse, especially for high-end industry. We had John Deere here — they talked about how John Deere, David May, is building a new factory here and reshoring here in North Carolina.

REPORTER: Michael Straffer with Politico. Mr. Secretary, you said this morning that the elevated Treasury bond yields were part of a growth story and reflected the strength of the American economy. But the Trump administration came into office promising to lower rates, lower costs, and you’ve previously said you’re focused on bringing down the ten-year Treasury yield. So what’s your message to American consumers who are facing elevated mortgage rates, rates on their consumer loans? And do you worry that higher rates will be a political drag for Republicans this fall?

BESSENT: Look, the most important thing is that we have higher growth. So we have seen real wage increases — under the Biden administration, this was the average: the average decrease in purchasing power for Americans was 4%, 21.5% inflation, 17.5% wage growth. What we are seeing now is real wage growth, especially for the bottom quartile of wage earners, which is exactly what President Trump did in his first term.

And we are working every day to bring costs down. We have temporary elevated energy prices, and these prices will come down. I don’t know whether it’s today, tomorrow or next week, we will get to the other side of this. The economy is strong, and importantly, we are creating private sector jobs here. These are not government jobs. Government jobs increase with the CPI or the PCE — that’s where wages increase.

The reason we are now seeing real wage increases is that these are private sector jobs, unemployment remains low, consumer confidence remains high, these energy prices will come down, and then we will see very large real wage gains again.

REPORTER: Hi, Secretary Bessent. Riley with the Washington Post. I wondered if you could expand on the agreement between China and the U.S. on the Strait of Hormuz. Has China made any specific commitments this week to help with the blockade or efforts to reopen it?

BESSENT: No. I didn’t say that there was a specific agreement. I said we agreed that the Strait must be open.

REPORTER: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. With the economic pressure on Iran, as well as the kinetic strikes we’re seeing, do you believe that we are closer to the end, or are we in the middle of this conflict?

BESSENT: Look, Iran does not have control of the Strait, and they are in a death spiral. We have control of the Strait. The limited kinetic strikes that we did yesterday were to take out radar — some patchwork of Tinker Toy, erector-set radar that they were trying to reconstruct along the banks of the Strait.

I can’t remember what the number is — I just saw it, but I think we took out about 17 million barrels of crude yesterday. That is not Iranian control of the Strait. And I will tell you that one of the best allies that the Iranians have on this is the media, because the media immediately publishes all the lies that they say. There are no mines in the Strait. Two ships did not hit mines. This is Iranian agitprop, and everyone in this audience and every news outlet should be ashamed for publishing that, taking a lying regime at face value.

Well, I think, look — they are panicked. They are resorting to kinetic action because they are getting squeezed economically. Could you imagine that the country with the third most energy resources in the world now has four-hour gas lines that go all night, all night, because they have done such a terrible job of managing their economy?

And at a point, either the IRGC are going to turn on each other, the people are going to turn on them, or they are going to come to the table and want to do a deal that they can stick with. President Trump has said for the past few weeks the reason the MOU failed was they were not ready for a deal. So we will see when they are ready for a deal.

But as their bank accounts — their personal bank accounts — disappear around the world, as we squeeze this regime, as their soldiers look at them when they’re not getting paid — we have seen the president of Iran, the speaker of the parliament in Iran, and the central bank governor both said last weekend — we didn’t see it reported anywhere — that there are problems in the economy and everybody should be ready for it. The Supreme Leader prepared everyone for that.

So it’s just going to be a matter of time, and again, it’s an overused line, but it’s going to be like Ernest Hemingway said: “How did you go bankrupt? Slowly, then quickly.” Well, I think we’re in the acceleration phase. You can see the currency — sixteen months ago the currency was at 800,000 to the dollar, now it’s 2,100,000 — and that just means that they have no access to dollars and that they are in the death throes and will they lash out more kinetically? Maybe. But they will be ready for a deal.

Tax Reform and the Economy

REPORTER: Thank you. Matt Mercer with Breitbart News. One of the signature accomplishments of the Trump administration has been the tax reform bill, the working families tax cuts. Can you talk about Art Laffer being here, as well as what advice he may have had for other countries to pursue similar reforms to what the Trump administration has made since taking office in 2025?

BESSENT: Well, I just want to say hello to Dr. Laffer, who’s over here in the corner. He is the original Reagan-era souvenir, and he has been a great mentor to me. He has a long arc in his career, and just as the Reagan tax cuts created American prosperity, Dr. Laffer was instrumental in helping us craft these tax cuts.

And I think what has been very, very powerful is the full expensing of equipment, full expensing of factories and full expensing of ag structures. So we are seeing an industrial boom, and that will first manifest itself in construction jobs, then we will see when the factory jobs come online.

And the economy here is very, very strong, and I think reaccelerating, and this is in the face of this Iran conflict. Interest rates will come down when we get on the other side of this. The economy will accelerate.

And I would add too that right now we have what Alan Greenspan would have called a “conundrum” — that we have large borrowings by AI institutions. There are businesses that are meeting these incredible CapEx needs, at a point — as we heard from our private sector partners yesterday — this CapEx will turn into productivity, and that will be extremely disinflationary. So I would guess that in the next six months, we will start seeing the benefits of that.

AI and Global Cooperation

REPORTER: Hi, Mr. Secretary. Thanks for taking our questions. I wanted to hear a little bit more about the conversations you’ve had about AI these past few days with your ministerial counterparts, and specifically with China. And then quickly, second question: can you tell us something that you learned about the global economy these past few days that you did not know coming into the G20?

BESSENT: Great. So we had limited discussions with the Chinese on AI because the designate for their AI discussions is my counterpart, Vice Premier He Lifeng. So he was not here. We did have a few limited conversations.

I expect that when President Trump and Xi Jinping meet in Washington in September, that AI will be on the agenda. And look, as the number one and number two superpowers in AI by a lot, it behooves all of us to put up guardrails, to have close communication, to prevent the non-state actors from achieving any of these powerful large language models.

In terms of the conversations with the rest of the G20, because the U.S. is leading, they’re always very interested in what we were doing. So we discussed what we have done with the kind of structures we have set up for our financial institutions to speak to each other. We’ve talked about what we are doing to increase resiliency, and we’ve told them we are happy to show them how we have structured industry working groups on this, to show them how we are structuring, whether it’s grants or loans, for industry to increase their resiliency.

And we also have told them that we should all be in very close touch because these models are very powerful. They’re moving very quickly, and we all have a responsibility to make the best of them and to make sure that we get to the productivity phase.

And in terms of what I’ve learned here, is that everyone understands the problem — it’s just, do they want to deal with it. And there are various hindrances in each part of the world, but we see in Europe that Mario Draghi, former ECB head, issued a report, and we’ve advised the Europeans to follow many of his procedures. We’ve talked to the Japanese, and I’ve said they had a tremendous success in Abenomics — now they should actually let that run and stop the reflation. So everyone knows what they need to do, and I think by creating this forum here, we were able to show them what we’re doing, learn best practices from everyone else.

REPORTER: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. So Japan’s long-term interest rate hit 3% during this G20 meeting, and of course, one of the reasons — I think Bank of Japan’s interest rate hike expectation this month — but many market participants also closely focus on monitoring the fiscal condition in Japan, as major economies, including the United States. And could you let me know what kind of discussion did you have regarding the fiscal consolidation, regarding the G20 meeting and bilateral meeting with Japan, as a major economist? Thank you.

BESSENT: Yes. Well, again, some of those conversations were private, but what I have said publicly is that I think Abenomics, which was designed to bring Japan out of disinflation, is a reflationary program that has worked. And one of the great parts of Abenomics is the economy has been restructured in terms of the corporate sector, bringing down regulation. Many of the things that we’ve talked about here for the past few days, Japan has already done.

So I think it’s now time, as I said, for “Takaichinomics.” And I think that Japan can sit back and enjoy the benefits of a successful eleven, twelve, thirteen-year run that has brought them into, I think, an excellent global position.

In 2011, Japan was written off as dead, and now I think it’s one of the most vibrant economies in the world, and they, if inflation is 2%, they’ve succeeded in reflating, and now they have to think about the consequences of their success.

REPORTER: Thank you. Back to the AI question — when you talked with your private sector leaders, you talked about the productivity gains. What’s your message to the Americans and the local and state leaders who are coming out against the build-out of this economic infrastructure?

BESSENT: Yep. Look, I think that we need to sit back, take a deep breath — all change can be scary. All change can sometimes seem like it’s moving too quickly.

But the business leaders we had yesterday — yesterday we decided that we did not want to have the AI companies, language labs, any of the AI academics — what we wanted to bring in were real companies. So we had pharma companies, farm equipment companies, industrial companies, and they told us about how they were integrating it into their supply chains. And the fact is that this can be transformative.

I think that the AI companies, whether it is the builders of the data centers, whether it is the labs themselves, have done a horrendous job, horrendous job of explaining themselves to the American people. And I think we need a big reset on this. They’re going to have to take some of the blame, and they are going to have to convince the American people that all the benefits will not accrue to a small group.

And that is what I tell them every time I hear them, or every time I see them — that we have to make sure that this is spread evenly, that the productivity gains that we see — what we heard yesterday was that AI is increasing jobs. The other thing that we are seeing in the numbers is that we are seeing AI result in a massive increase in small business startups, because you’re seeing the one, the two, the three-person company that would have taken critical mass of 15 or 20 people.

So I would expect that we would see a startup boom, and we are seeing it. And that’s Main Street. That is small business. That is what powers this.

So again, there’s a lot of misinformation out there, and a lot of it is deserving — some of it, or a lot of it, is Chinese agitprop that is just being regurgitated. And as we’ve seen, a large number of sites that have been pushing back against AI build-out were clearly foreign, and many of them Chinese. And look, I don’t blame the Chinese, because we’re ahead and we’re going to stay ahead. We’ve gone from 50% of global compute — by 2028, we will be at 80% of global compute. The U.S. will be an AI superpower, and all the benefits will accrue to the American people.

Thanks.

BESSENT: Okay. Thank you all.

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