Bessent Urges Fed to Lower Rates by 150 Basis Points or More

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made his most explicit call yet for the Federal Reserve to execute a cycle of interest-rate cuts, suggesting the central bank’s benchmark ought to be at least 1.5 percentage points lower than it is now.

“I think we could go into a series of rate cuts here, starting with a 50 basis-point rate cut in September,” Bessent said in a television interview on Bloomberg Surveillance Wednesday. “If you look at any model” it suggests that “we should probably be 150, 175 basis points lower.”