Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent blasted former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in response to her criticizing the Trump administration’s economic and trade policies in an interview with the Wire China published Friday.
Yellen, who served as treasury secretary from 2021 to 2025 under the Biden administration, told the Wire China that she does not currently talk to Bessent at all, claiming that he has “succeeded in undoing everything that was a priority of mine at [the] Treasury [Department].” She added that “this goes well beyond China.”
“It goes to reforms of the Internal Revenue Service, an international tax treaty with 137 countries that we negotiated, our attempts to evolve the agendas of the World Bank and IMF [International Monetary Fund] to address global public goods like preparing for pandemics and addressing climate change,” Yellen told the outlet. “All of that is completely dead. I don’t think he needs my advice on that.”
When asked to comment, Bessent told the outlet that Yellen’s “bitter comments come as no surprise.” He added that the Trump administration has “engaged China in a respectful but fulsome manner.”
“Sadly, these bitter comments come as no surprise,” Bessent told the Wire China. “Secretary Yellen’s greatest priority, when she actually visited the Treasury building, was leaving me and the American people with the largest deficit to GDP [gross domestic product] in American history when our country was not at war or in a recession.”
“The Trump administration and I have engaged China in a respectful but fulsome manner, rather than being lectured and cowered,” Bessent added. “I couldn’t even tell you what Secretary Yellen’s China policy was, aside from consuming beer and mushrooms.”
Yellen previously claimed that she unknowingly consumed “hallucinogenic” mushrooms at a restaurant during a July 2023 diplomatic trip to China. Additionally, Yellen sampled beer made with American hops at the Jing-A brewery in Beijing, China, in April 2024.
The budget deficit in the U.S. from October 2022 to August 2023 — when Yellen was still serving as treasury secretary — was $1.5 trillion, according to the Brookings Institution. As a share of GDP, the deficit has increased from around 3.8% in the first 11 months of 2022 to 5.7% in 2023, the Brookings Institution reported.
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