Bessent Says Federal Reserve 'Seem A Little Frozen At the Wheel'

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent indicated it wouldn’t make sense for the government to ramp up sales of longer-term securities given where yields are today, though he held out hope that interest rates across maturities will be falling as inflation slows. He spoke with Bloomberg's Sonali Basak on Bloomberg Television and Radio.

“Why would we do that?” Bessent said Monday when asked about increasing the share of longer-term securities in Treasury debt issuance. “The time to have done that would have been in 2021, 2022.”

Bessent last year repeatedly criticized then-Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen for relying more on short-term Treasuries in issuance, saying the effort was aimed at keeping longer-term borrowing costs low to juice the economy before the election. But he’s retained Yellen’s debt-issuance strategy since taking the helm.

“Why would we do it at these rates, if we are more than one standard deviation above the long-term rate,” Bessent said.

Ten-year US Treasuries yield about 4.26% now, compared with 3.73% for two-year notes and 3.81% for 12-month bills.

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