Treasury secretary on inflation, tariffs and Ukraine deal

WASHINGTON (CBS, KYMA/KECY) - Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about the economy, inflation, and tariffs.

When asked when Americans can expect to experience the benefits that President Donald Trump said would be coming in day one after Brennan shared a CBS News poll showing "at least half the country reports concern about paying for food and groceries and housing."

"I think President Trump said that he'll own the economy in six or 12 months, but I can tell you that we are working to get these prices down every day, but it took four years to get us here, and we've had five weeks so interest rates are down. That's a very good start toward housing affordability, toward auto affordability, and we are tackling this," Bessent responded.

During the interview, Brennan and Bessent talked about President Trump's tariff plan, with Brennan asking Bessent if we should expect the tariffs to come this Tuesday, to which Bessent answered saying:

"There's a series of tariffs. There's March 4, and then there are the big the there's the big tariff program that's going to be outlined on April 2 by commerce and USTR, and that's the President's notion of reciprocal tariffs. And that's going to be very path dependent. It's- we are going to show what are other countries tariffs on specific goods? What are non tariff barriers? What are the currency manipulation, what is manipulation of financing or labor manipulation, and what are these horrendous fines that the European Union is putting on our tech companies, and we are going to evaluate that and give them an opportunity to remedy that, so we could either see a ratcheting up in tariffs, or if our trading partners want to remedy what has been unfair trade, then we could see the tariffs come off. So it's going to be path dependent."

Brennan then asked if the deal with Ukraine is still on the table or if President Trump instructed Bessent to "drop the project" following the confrontation between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on Friday, and Bessent said, "Not at present."

"I think we have to see if President Zelenskyy wants to proceed," Bessent added.

To watch more of Brennan's interview with Bessent, click here.