Minutes after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 90-day pause on a tariff plan that triggered a stock market rout and global upheaval, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent strode out of the White House to explain the abrupt turnabout.
"President Trump created maximum negotiating leverage for himself," Bessent told reporters. "This was his strategy all along."
It was the clearest sign yet of the larger role Bessent has taken this week in articulating Trump's trade policies to financial markets, even though his messaging has sometimes contradicted the president and business leaders.
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