Scott Bessent Sends Message To Business Leaders About Trump's Tax And Economic Plans

At a White House press briefing, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent touted President Trump's tax and economic plans.

Transcript

00:00Mr. Secretary, so contacts I have in the business community say that they're basically frozen for

00:05long-term investment because of the uncertainty around tariffs. How long do you think President

00:09Trump has to make a deal before there's damage to the economy?

00:13Look, I think that what we're seeing is that business leaders, they've gone into a pause,

00:20and I think we're going to give them great certainty on this tax bill. And I think over

00:25the next couple of weeks, as I said, we have 18 important trading relationships. We'll put

00:31China to the side. 17 are in motion. And then, as I said yesterday, I think there's a very good

00:38chance we're going to get this tax bill done. And the tax bill is going to be very powerful for

00:44domestic U.S. investment. So what we are going to do, one of the most powerful parts of President

00:50Trump's 2017 tax bill was full expensing of equipment. We are going to make that, as President

00:57Trump said in his speech to Congress, that will be retroactive to January 20th. The other thing that

01:04we are looking to add is full expensing for factories. So bring your factory back. You can

01:10fully expense the equipment and the building. We will couple that with deregulation, cheap energy,

01:18and regulatory certainty. And that will continue to make the U.S. the greatest destination for domestic

01:24endpoint.