President Donald Trump is focused on 10-year Treasury yields to bring down borrowing costs rather than the Federal Reserve actions on short-term interest rates, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.
"He and I are focused on the 10-year Treasury," Bessent said in a Wednesday interview with Fox Business. "He wants lower rates. He is not calling for the Fed to lower rates."
Trump, who in the past claimed he would "demand" the Fed to cut interest rates to spark economic growth, did an about-face when the Fed said it would keep rates steady last week, saying he wasn't surprised.
"Holding the rates at this point was the right thing to do," he told reporters on Sunday.
While the Fed's short-term benchmark plays a role in setting credit card rates and car loan rates, 10-year Treasury bonds influence 30-year mortgage rates.
He says Trump's policies will lower inflation and cause bond yields to fall.
"The bond market is recognizing that" under the Trump administration "energy prices will be lower and we can have non-inflationary growth," Bessent said of the drop in yields in recent weeks, Bloomberg reported.
Bessent said the administration's work to expand the energy supply will help curb inflation.
For the American working class, he said, "The energy component for them is one of the surest indicators for long-term inflation expectations."
"So if we can get gasoline back down, heating oil back down, then those consumers not only will be saving money, but their optimism for the future will" help them recover from high levels of inflation over the past several years, Bessent said.
