US Treasury Secretary Bessent: We will start working on Fed chair candidates in the fall

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made statements on the agenda in an interview with CNBC television.

Bessent said that the customs duty to be paid under the trade agreement reached with Vietnam will not be added to the basic tariff rate of 10 percent, thus the tariff rate that Vietnam will pay will be 20 percent.

Asked whether new trade deals could be made as the tariff deadline approaches, Bessent said countries that wait until the last minute to strike the best deal should be careful that tariff rates could revert to the levels announced on April 2.

Bessent, who also stated that it remains to be seen where trade negotiations with the European Union (EU) will lead, said, "This will be the President's decision. I spoke with my EU trade counterpart this morning. (US Trade Representative Jamieson) Greer will be working diligently throughout the weekend so we can see what we can do with the European Union."

Bessent underlined that they will do whatever US President Donald Trump wants regarding the tariff postponement period, and noted that Trump will decide which countries are negotiating in good faith and which are not.

"The Fed should have cut interest rates long ago"

Arguing that the Fed should have already cut interest rates according to its previous models, Bessent said, "Let's see if they want to make a mistake by not cutting, that's fine. We are at very high rates, but it's still their decision. If interest rates are not cut, I think the cut in September could be bigger."

When asked about Trump's criticism of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, Bessent emphasized that Trump is very knowledgeable from an economic perspective.

Asked whether he could hold two positions at once, Bessent said: "I don't think anything like this has been done since the 1930s, and I'm very happy with my job. I think we have a lot of good candidates for the Fed chair. We'll start working on that in the fall."

"I think we're going to see a flurry of deals before July 9," Bessent said in an interview with Bloomberg. "We're going to see how the president wants to treat those who are negotiating, whether he's happy that they're negotiating in good faith. I think we're going to see about 100 countries that are going to pay a minimum of 10 percent reciprocal tariffs and we'll go from there. So I think we're going to see a lot of movement in the coming days."