US Treasury chief Bessent backs financial power as a foreign-policy tool

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington should use the power of the US financial system to advance foreign-policy goals, including building alliances in the Western Hemisphere.

“I believe that I can use the balance sheet of the U.S. for foreign policy. So, we have a foreign policy goal and that is to create allies in the Western hemisphere,” Bessent said Tuesday at an event at the SMU Cox School of Business.

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I believe that I can use the balance sheet of the U.S. for foreign policy. So, we have a foreign policy goal and that is to create allies in the Western hemisphere.

He pointed to Argentina as a leading example. Bessent said he believed President Javier Milei’s government had sound policies. Last year, the United States provided Argentina with a multibillion-dollar support package intended to stabilize its currency and strengthen Milei ahead of midterm elections.

Bessent’s remarks amounted to an unusually direct acknowledgment that the Trump administration is prepared to deploy US financial resources to shape political and economic conditions abroad. The administration has sought to influence political contests elsewhere in Latin America and has moved to expand the US presence and influence in the region.

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Argentina was the front-runner for that and it was my belief that the Milei government had sound policies.

The article also links that approach to other US actions. President Donald Trump ordered the seizure of ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in a deadly raid, while the US military carried out several strikes on boats in the Caribbean that killed dozens. Rights advocates in the United States and abroad have called those actions imperial and said they amounted to extrajudicial killings. Trump has described them as efforts to protect US interests and combat drug trafficking and illegal immigration.

Bessent also discussed a rare joint intervention with Japan to buy yen on July 31. He said the operation gave him insight into what Japanese officials and the Bank of Japan might do. The administration has used tariffs as another foreign-policy instrument.

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When we intervened with the Japanese yen, I have pretty good insight into what the Japanese, what the Bank of Japan is going to do, what Japanese policy makers are going to do.