‘Bunch of grumpy old men’: Scott Bessent slams WSJ critics of Trump’s economic agenda

WASHINGTON, DC: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent launched a sharp attack on The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board on Friday, accusing the paper’s opinion writers of refusing to acknowledge what he described as strong economic results under President Donald Trump.

Speaking during an appearance on 'Bannon’s War Room,' Bessent dismissed repeated editorials criticizing Trump’s tariff-heavy trade strategy, arguing that the publication has consistently misread economic data tied to the administration’s policies.

Scott Bessent blasts Wall Street Journal over Trump trade policy

The criticism emerged after host Steve Bannon questioned whether the Journal’s editorial board was ignoring recent economic indicators while continuing to oppose Trump’s trade policies.

“Are they looking at a different set of numbers because they’ve been consistently, I think, negative on everything that’s happening,” Bannon said.

Bessent responded by claiming the editorial board focuses narrowly on tariffs while overlooking other factors.

“They just immediately gravitate to this doomsday scenario because The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board can’t stand the president’s policies,” Bessent said, adding that the board is “a bunch of grumpy old men over who do not want to admit that they have been fantastically wrong.”

Bessent cited October trade figures to support his argument, saying the US recorded its smallest trade deficit since 2009, a development he said had been largely ignored by Trump’s critics.

“In October, we had the best trade number, the smallest trade deficits since 2009,” he said. “It was unexpected that the GDP was so strong in October. It was strong because of exports.”

Drawing on his decades in finance, Bessent argued that trade once contributed positively to US GDP before ballooning deficits reversed that trend. “When I first started, 1980s, 1990s, trade used to contribute to GDP,” he said, contrasting that period with what he called years of unchecked deficits."

Scott Bessent says tariffs overshadow Trump trade deal gains

Bessent also complained that media coverage focuses almost exclusively on tariffs while ignoring the broader structure of Trump’s trade negotiations.

“The headline is always the tariff,” he said, listing recent levies imposed on Europe, Japan, and several Southeast Asian nations. “The other side of that ledger… is why we saw that big GDP number.”

He credited US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer with securing favorable terms in negotiations, saying Greer had negotiated trade agreements “in a magnificent way.”

“Jamieson is going in with a machete,” Bessent said, describing aggressive bargaining tactics that he argued are reshaping America’s trade position.