Bessent walks back rate cut remarks: 'I didn't tell the Fed what to do'

[U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Visits World Expo In Osaka]

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent clarified Thursday he is not calling for interest-rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, saying his remarks only pointed to models showing the neutral rate about 150 basis points lower.

In an interview with Fox Business, Bessent said he "didn't tell the Fed what to do," walking back his comments a day earlier, when he suggested the Fed should be open [https://seekingalpha.com/news/4484548-bessent-suggests-that-fed-should-be-open-to-half-point-cut-report] to a half-point reduction in the wake of slowing job growth.

"What I said was that to get to a neutral rate on interest, that that would be approximately a 150-basis-point cut," Bessent said Thursday. The neutral rate is the rate that keeps the economy steady -- neither speeding it up nor slowing it down.

“I’m not calling for" a rate cut, the former hedge fund manager added [https://www.foxbusiness.com/video/6376910492112]. "I didn’t call for one. I just said that a model of a neutral rate is approximately 150 basis points lower.”

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