US Debt Ceiling Nears Crisis Levels—Bessent Warns It’s ’On the Warning Track’
Another day, another fiscal cliff—Washington’s favorite spectator sport heats up as debt ceiling alarms blare.
Bessent’s warning comes as Treasury juggles chainsaws: pay bills or trigger default. Meanwhile, Wall Street hedges with crypto—because nothing says ’trust in the system’ like betting against it.
Fun fact: The last 78 debt ceiling ’crises’ were resolved with more debt. But sure, this time is different.
Bessent asked US investors to look beyond Trump’s criticism
A day earlier, at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles, Bessent sought to calm investors. He asked them to look beyond criticism of President Trump’s agenda. He said, “You’ll be glad you did — not only because we have the most productive workforce in the world. But because we will soon have the most favorable tax and regulatory environment as well.”
His pitch came only hours after Mr. Trump ordered new tariffs on foreign film producers, a move that puzzled Hollywood insiders who questioned how such a levy would work. The measure echoes earlier duties on steel, aluminum, and electric vehicles.
Markets have been jittery since last month, when the president imposed tariffs on several trading partners and deepened a fight with China, sending share prices lower. Bond yields swung sharply after each announcement, signaling traders’ rising unease there.
“Our goal with trade policy is to level the playing field for our great American workers and companies,” he said at Milken. He called the broader debate “noisy” but said investors should judge the country by its fundamentals: a vast consumer market, deep capital markets, and what he described as “the most competitive tax code in the industrialized world” once Congress acts.
The trade drama spilled onto social media Sunday night, when Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social that he was ordering agencies “to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.”
On Monday, a White House spokesman said no final decision had been made and officials were still studying options.
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