Trump’s Treasury Pick Is Poised to Test ‘Three Arrows’ Economic Strategy
The New York Times
Scott Bessent’s “3-3-3” plan to stimulate growth, reduce the deficit and expand oil production will soon face economic realities.
When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe set out to rejuvenate Japan’s economy more than a decade ago, he laid out a strategy known as the “Three Arrows,” which aimed to banish deflation by easing monetary policy, increasing government spending and restructuring the economy so that it was poised for growth.
President-elect Donald J. Trump could soon brandish three arrows of his own. Mr. Trump’s Treasury secretary pick, Scott Bessent, has mapped out a three-pronged approach to jump-starting a U.S. economy that has been saddled with inflation and sluggish output. The concept, which he billed during the campaign as his 3-3-3 plan, entails increasing growth to 3 percent, cutting the budget deficit to 3 percent of gross domestic product and raising U.S. energy production by three million barrels of oil per day, or the equivalent in other fuels.
A longtime hedge fund investor, Mr. Bessent has been a student of “Abenomics” since his days as the top money manager for the billionaire philanthropist George Soros. In that role, he met regularly with advisers to Mr. Abe and traveled from New York City to Tokyo on a monthly basis. He also famously bet against the yen.
“I became convinced that Abe and his circle of advisers would commit to directing all of the resources of the prime minister’s office to this multipronged and daunting task,” Mr. Bessent wrote in a 2022 essay in The International Economy magazine.
While Mr. Trump has made broad economic promises on the campaign trail this year to supercharge the economy, slash the debt and unleash energy production, Mr. Bessent’s benchmarks offer a more specific scorecard against which Mr. Trump’s economic performance can be measured at the end of his term.
But reaching those marks will not be easy and will depend on a variety of factors, including how deeply Republicans decide to cut taxes, how high Mr. Trump ratchets up tariffs and how much oil global markets demand.
The move by Chinese regulators came a week after the Biden administration expanded curbs on the sale of advanced U.S. technology to China.
Walter Mosley talks about how his fictional hero frees himself from wage labor through America’s favorite side hustle: landlording.
Acadia Healthcare falsifies records at its methadone clinics and enrolls patients who aren’t addicted to opioids, a Times investigation found.
The law will ban the video app in the United States by Jan. 19 if its owner, ByteDance, does not sell it to a non-Chinese company.
The chief executive of Nvidia, Jensen Huang, has taken advantage of popular loopholes in the federal estate and gift taxes, which have quietly been eviscerated.
Connor Sports, in the tiny mill town of Amasa, Mich., is one of the leading makers of hardwood floors for top professional and college teams.
Faltering U.S. industrial leadership has allowed China to take a harder trade stance as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office.
General Motors and other foreign automakers are selling fewer cars and losing lots of money in China, where domestic electric and hybrid cars have taken off.
Pat Gelsinger stepped down after nearly four years at the helm of the onetime highflying company, Intel said Monday.
Pat Gelsinger stepped down after nearly four years at the helm of the onetime highflying company, Intel said Monday.
New rules prohibit the sale of certain types of chips and equipment to China, in an effort to close loopholes and cement the Biden administration’s legacy in countering the U.S. rival.