{"id":50269,"date":"2025-11-23T16:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T22:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=50269"},"modified":"2025-11-24T00:07:31","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T06:07:31","slug":"bessent-says-inflation-rise-has-nothing-to-do-with-tariffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=50269","title":{"rendered":"Bessent says inflation rise \u2018has nothing to do with tariffs\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent\u2002<\/u><\/a>said on Sunday that President Trump\u2019s sweeping tariffs have \u201cnothing to do\u201d with the rise in inflation<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview Sunday on NBC News\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press,\u201d moderator Kristen Welker\u2002<\/u><\/a>pressed the secretary on the administration\u2019s decision to roll back tariffs on more than 200 food products, just as President Trump\u2002<\/u><\/a>has renewed his focus on affordability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou have said recently that you think tariffs help consumers. If tariffs help consumers, why is the administration rolling them back?\u201d Welker asked Bessent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFirst 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,\u201d Bessent said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welker had pointed to data<\/u><\/a> from the consumer price index (CPI) showing inflation at 3 percent in September, up from 2.3 percent in April, before Trump\u2019s tariffs took effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd 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,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bessent had earlier insisted \u201cinflation hasn\u2019t gone up,\u201d adding, \u201cWe have slowed inflation. And we are working very hard to bring it down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump signed an executive order earlier this month<\/u><\/a> cutting tariffs on scores of products in a bid to lower some grocery prices. The products no longer subject to tariffs<\/u><\/a> included coffee, tea, beef, bananas, tropical fruit, wood and iron. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rollback came after Republicans suffered significant defeats in this month\u2019s elections, which saw Democratic candidates \u2014 many focused largely on affordability and cost of living \u2014 emerge with commanding support from the electorate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

thehill<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent\u2002said on Sunday that President Trump\u2019s sweeping tariffs have \u201cnothing to do\u201d with the rise in inflation. In an interview Sunday on NBC News\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press,\u201d moderator Kristen Welker\u2002pressed the secretary on the administration\u2019s decision to roll back tariffs on more than 200 food products, just as President Trump\u2002has renewed his focus on affordability. \u201cYou […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":50270,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1155],"tags":[35376,1252,3616],"class_list":["post-50269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-becent","tag-inflation","tag-tariffs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50269"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50271,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50269\/revisions\/50271"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}