U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks during a press conference at the Treasury Department Cash Room on August 24, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Mehmet Ethel | Anadolu | Getty Images
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is scheduled for an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Monday morning as the Trump administration faces concerns about rising fuel prices, interest rates and risks from artificial intelligence.
Bessent is scheduled to begin the interview at 8 a.m.
His appearance comes on the heels of a weekend meeting with China’s He Lifeng ahead of a summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump in Washington later this week.
Bessent told Axios last week that he was open to discussing shared AI risks with China during the meeting. Bessent said on Sunday that ahead of Xi’s visit, he had successfully held talks with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, where they discussed issues such as AI and trade.
The Treasury secretary last week touted that the Treasury Department will buy back more than $5 billion in 10-year and 20-year Treasury bonds on September 10.
Since the U.S.-Israel war against Iran began in late February, the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yield, which moves inversely to bond prices, has risen about 100 basis points, topping 5% last week for the first time since 2007.
The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury has an impact on long-term borrowing costs, including mortgage rates, which rose above 7% this month for the first time in more than a year.
In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on Sept. 15, Bessent called the buyback a “success” even as yields continue to rise in response to the initiative.
“There was a counterfactual that that would have been the case,” Bessent told the committee on Sept. 15, suggesting that yields would have been higher had there been no buybacks.
“Since the arrival of President Trump, (the U.S. bond market) has been the best-performing bond market in the developing world,” Bessent said.
The rise in yields coincides with a sharp rise in diesel fuel prices as a result of the Iran war.
Concerns over the affordability of fuel and other necessities have left President Trump’s fellow Republicans in Congress worried about whether they will be able to maintain majority control in Congress in November’s elections.
At the midterm Republican National Convention on September 9, President Trump vowed that every adult American citizen would receive a $5,000 “dividend” if Republicans continued to control both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
On Sept. 16, the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee raised its benchmark interest rate to its target range of 3.75% to 4% for the first time since 2023, in what the committee said was an effort to curb what it called “high inflation.”
President Trump, who appointed Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh, has repeatedly called on the Fed to lower interest rates. But the president told reporters he had spoken to Warsh before the FOMC meeting and said, “It would be better if the board voted. That doesn’t matter.”
