Catenaa, Saturday, August 22, 2026- President Donald Trump said he did not direct Scott Bessent to intervene in the bond market this week, saying that the Treasury secretary acted on his own authority.
“No, not at all,” Trump told reporters Friday when asked if he had pushed Bessent to take action. “He’s a very capable man. He wanted to do it. He’s very good at it.”
Trump’s comments came after Bessent moved this week to calm bond markets and help lower long-term borrowing costs that had hit multi-year highs.
Yields have been rising on concerns about the US budget deficit, growing national debt, elevated inflation and a flood of debt from tech companies investing heavily in artificial intelligence.
On Wednesday, the Treasury Department said it would increase buybacks of longer-dated securities by at least double the current level, a move that surprised investors. That impact was short-lived, however, with US 30-year bonds erasing gains on the following day.
Bessent, in a CNBC interview on Thursday, said he was prepared to expand efforts to buy back costlier debt and said the administration would unveil a new fiscal initiative to address high borrowing costs.
“We are announcing probably at the end of this week, beginning of next week, an increased focus on fiscal consolidation,” Bessent said in an interview Thursday on CNBC. He told reporters separately that President Donald Trump had tasked him and Budget Director Russ Vought with that initiative.
The president praised Bessent on Friday. “He has a good touch, very good natural touch for the bonds and interest, and he did that,” Trump said.
The Treasury chief played down Thursday’s market moves, saying “anything that happens within a 24-hour period is noise.” And he highlighted that the expanded buyback operations “could be more than the $4 billion” size currently planned to start next month.
Asked how much more the Treasury is willing to do to get bond yields down, Bessent said, “We have a big toolkit, so we’ll see. And part of it is signaling here, to show that we believe that the yields don’t reflect the underlying fundamentals.”
“All we’re trying to do is get people to focus on the fundamentals and not trade the headlines during a quiet period in a thin market,” Bessent said.
He didn’t suggest what “headlines” he was concerned about the market paying attention to. But on Wednesday, Treasury data showed that one broad gauge of US debt surpassed $40 trillion for the first time.
