Overview
- Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, speaking Friday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, said the United States had been "asleep" on economic security and must now treat domestic production and supply chains as core national security priorities.
- Bessent presented the administration's existing measures—tariff actions, industrial investment, a push to rebuild shipbuilding, and a Strategic Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients reserve—as parts of a unified doctrine rather than isolated steps.
- He did not announce new policies in the prepared remarks but framed the America First agenda as correcting decades of bipartisan choices that he said eroded U.S. manufacturing by overemphasizing cheap imports and efficiency.
- Bessent warned that reducing dependence on China will be difficult because Beijing controls key areas such as critical minerals and electronics and can use regulations to penalize companies that shift supply chains.
- The speech follows President Trump’s summit with Xi Jinping two weeks earlier that produced managed trade and investment agreements, and it signals the administration will press for tougher, selective engagement rather than full disengagement from global markets.