The U.S. Department of the Treasury published remarks by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent setting out three priorities for the department under President Trump’s agenda: “responsibly deregulating” financial services and refocusing supervision on material risks, using tariffs as a tool to reshape international economic relations, and updating the use of U.S. financial sanctions with an emphasis on immediate impact and defined objectives. On financial regulation, Bessent pointed to President Trump’s executive order requiring the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Reserve to submit regulatory actions for review at the Office of Management and Budget, and said he would use the Financial Stability Oversight Council and the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets to drive greater cross-agency coordination. He cited supervisory shortcomings associated with the 2023 banking crisis and raised the enhanced supplementary leverage ratio as an example of a framework that warrants rigorous analysis, including possible adjustments to the treatment of exposures such as central bank reserves and short-duration U.S. Treasuries, while stressing he was not making a specific policy announcement. On sanctions, he warned against overuse and said the administration would apply sanctions “explicitly and aggressively” with monitoring against objectives, citing a “maximum pressure” campaign aimed at collapsing Iran’s oil exports from about 1.5–1.6 million barrels per day by targeting Iran’s oil supply chain, “ghost fleet” infrastructure and regional facilitators of revenue transfers.

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