Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Sunday that President Trump’s sweeping tariffs have “nothing to do” with the rise in inflation.
In an interview Sunday on NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” moderator Kristen Welker pressed the secretary on the administration’s decision to roll back tariffs on more than 200 food products, just as President Trump has renewed his focus on affordability.
“You have said recently that you think tariffs help consumers. If tariffs help consumers, why is the administration rolling them back?” Welker asked Bessent.
“First of all, Kristen, if you look at the data, that imported goods, the inflation has actually been flat. Inflation is up because of the service economy and services. So that has nothing to do with tariffs,” Bessent said.
Welker had pointed to data from the consumer price index (CPI) showing inflation at 3 percent in September, up from 2.3 percent in April, before Trump’s tariffs took effect.
“And many of the food items where the inflation is coming down, the USTR [U.S. trade representative] has been working very hard on trade deals. And the trade deals that have been in the works for six or eight months coincide with many Latin American, Central American countries, where the foodstuffs you just named come from,” he continued.
Bessent had earlier insisted “inflation hasn’t gone up,” adding, “We have slowed inflation. And we are working very hard to bring it down.”
Trump signed an executive order earlier this month cutting tariffs on scores of products in a bid to lower some grocery prices. The products no longer subject to tariffs included coffee, tea, beef, bananas, tropical fruit, wood and iron.
The rollback came after Republicans suffered significant defeats in this month’s elections, which saw Democratic candidates — many focused largely on affordability and cost of living — emerge with commanding support from the electorate.
