Secretary Bessent, got a moment please sir?
I'll take a couple of questions.
Sir, one question, a quick question about bonds.
[Inaudible]
Uh, Mr. Secretary, all bonds have erased gains after your action yesterday. Do you have further actions planned, and what's your reaction to how they've done?
Yeah, well, look, a- -- anything that happens within a 24-hour period is noise. And, you know, I, I think that once the market understands that we are focusing on fiscal consolidation and that we are, uh, trying to bring the market back into equilibrium, uh, in, in a thinly traded market, I think, uh, you know, I'm confident that bonds will continue declining.
We've got a spike in oil prices today that I don't really understand. You know, our announcement is for, uh, economics, uh, action, and I think that the economic action will mean that oil prices will come down sooner.
[Inaudible] Secretary? Secretary?
Mr. Secretary --
[Inaudible]
--- yeah, if you could, yeah, if you could answer facing the cameras. But, um, for the $40 trillion mark that we passed for the national debt, would you comment on that and how do we reverse that?
Yeah, it is, look. Uh, the, the 40 trillion is a big number. Uh, it is smaller when we look at the publicly traded amount because our social security funds and other government entities hold a substantial amount. And, you know, what we're gonna do? We're gonna have to grow our way out of this. And, uh, as I talked about, at, at G20 in Asheville, we are going to talk about the US growth strategy and encourage the rest of the world to come along with us. We are also, uh, you know, I, I announced that, uh, Director Russ Vought and I, uh, have been tasked with looking at fiscal consolidation.
I think the numbers have, uh, are not the actual numbers now. We've had to do substantial tariff refunds due to the court ruling. Uh, but they, with the Section 301 tariffs, I am confident that we will be back to a, uh, the same level, if not higher, of tariff income for last year. And that is most of the increase in the deficit.
And remember, we did not get here in a day, that we were left with a mess. The Biden administration had the highest deficit to GDP in history when we weren't at war or weren't in a recession. For 2025, we brought it down by more than a percent.
First Mr. Secretary, okay, so President Trump saying --
Wait. Wait. Wait, wait.
Neil --
Secretary?
Wait.
-- Neil McCabe. Neil McCabe.
Debt, Mr. Secretary, uh, uh, Target received a $1 billion refund for tariffs. What does that say about the besides the fact that it was done so quickly and efficiently with refund. But what does it say about the amount of Chinese-made goods and foreign-made goods that our retailers are still selling in the United States?
Yeah. Well, what, what it says is that the Democratic Attorney Generals who filed a ridiculous lawsuit against this administration wanted the money to go back to the payer of record. So, that is corporate welfare. The American people had that money. And if I hear another Democratic legislator say, make the inane remark, "The American people should get the money," the American people had the money in the US Treasury and we were forced to give it back.
But the, using the 301s, which have survived more than 5,000 suits, that we will get that tariff income back. Uh, but what you are seeing is that we don't know the discount that Target got from the Chinese supplies.
Ah, got you.
So, uh, you know, th- -- this is a corporate bonanza, which I said it would be at the top.
Secretary, real quick, message from Iran, sir --
Thank you for coming.
-- sir?
[Inaudible]
Message from Iran, sir?