America Was Being Played. The Bessent Doctrine Says Those Days Are Over.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent delivered a remarkably important speech on June 23 at the Economic Club of New York. Yet neither Wall Street nor most of the economic profession seems to have paid it enough attention. By laying out what until now seemed more like haphazard policy measures, Mr. Bessent put down a marker for how the United States plans to operate in a changing global economic system. In the process, he elevated both the scale and the scope of a systemic change that started in earnest during President Trump’s first term, was sustained by President Joe Biden and is...