The US Treasury Secretary also stated that the country has air superiority over Iran, and that Washington and Israel are in complete control of the Iranian sky.
The US Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, stated that it is likely that to 15% flat rate planned by the Trump administration to come into effect this week. In an interview with CNBC this Wednesday (4), he suggested that tariffs will return to their previous values in around five months.
Still in relation to the USA, Bessent commented that productivity is strong expansion due to technology and argued that the way to generate more jobs is to have the private sector create them. “US President Donald Trump said he could create jobs, but they would be federal jobs,” he said.
The secretary also mentioned that Anthropic will be outside of Treasury systems “in a few days”. At the beginning of the week, he had already said that the Department would end the use of all of the company’s products, including the artificial intelligence (AI) platform Claude – a competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT – as determined by US President Donald Trump.
Oil and scenario in Iran
In the same interview, the US Treasury Secretary stated that the country has air superiority over Iranand that Washington and Israel are in total control of the Iranian sky. According to him, Tehran will no longer be able to threaten the world, and the Iranian navy is “substantially weakened”.
“The US is getting stronger and stronger every day. The execution of Operation ‘Epic Fury’ is progressing and going better than planned, things are going very well, magnificently. The Iran made a big mistake by attacking Gulf allies“, detailed Bessent, mentioning that Iran’s ballistic missiles and bunkers will be destroyed in the coming days.
He insinuated that the Iranian economy is vulnerable due to US sanctions and maximum pressure policy, which was determined by Donald Trump, to the Treasury, months ago.
It also stated that crude oil markets are well supplied and that the USA is in a very different situation, compared to the period when Russia invaded Ukraine, due to Trump’s policies that are focused on the energy sector.
Despite the signage, the secretary said that, if necessary, the US Navy will provide safe passage for oil tankers.
Still on the issue of energy, he commented that China is vulnerable on the issuebut had been buying oil at “a big discount”.
On the geopolitical front, Bessent stated that Trump’s frustration with the Spanish government is “justifiable”, considering the issue of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). “Spain is taking undue advantage of the US and other NATO allies,” he said.
*With Estadão Content
