Treasury Secretary Bessent spoke to the Economic Club of New York today and emphasized the growthiness of President Trump’s program.

I had a chance to interview the Secretary after his speech.

Yet importantly, Mr. Bessent emphasized deregulation, especially in the banking sector — and that includes bank loans to small businesses.

This is important because during the Biden years, the Fed chairman, Jay Powell, swayed with the wind and promoted DEI, ESG, cutting off loans to oil and gas companies, terrible supervision of Silicon Valley, and a disregard for the importance of community banks.

Mr. Powell presided over a real shambles.

Incidentally it looks like a Trump appointee Michelle “Miki” Bowman, who is a member of the Federal Reserve Board is going to get the nod to become the Fed’s vice chairwoman for bank supervision — and that will be a welcome relief from Mr. Powell’s woke policies.

Mr. Bessent defended President Trump’s campaign to stop unfair trading practices and currency manipulation and intellectual property theft.

And incidentally Mr. Trump himself paused the 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada and essentially gave the United States–Mexico–Canada trade deal a 30-day reprieve.

But Mr. Trump is right about unfair trade. And I spoke with Mr. Bessent about this.

There is no equivalence between Communist China and America. And of course, it’s high time that Mr. Trump’s idea of reciprocity is put into place because if America doesn’t do it, the WTO will never do it. And our heartland industries will continue to suffer.

Mr. Trump’s review process is a little disheveled at the moment. But the policy itself is correct.

King Dollar will continue to reign, according to Mr. Bessent.

He’s very pleased that bond rates are coming down.

And Mr. Bessent is a growth guy.

He and I talked at some length about Mr. Trump’s tax cut policies where the president wants all of his 2017 extensions plus no tax on tips, or overtime, or senior benefits.

Afterall, growth is so important. I mentioned that the combination of tax cuts and deregulation and the rest of Mr. Trump’s program produces 3 percent growth over the next 10 years instead of the usual 1.8 percent Congressional Budget Office baseline. That’s worth $3 trillion more in resources created by the private sector.

Mr. Bessent also reminded me that Mr. Trump wants 100 percent immediate expensing for new factories as well as machinery and equipment. And it will all be retroactive to January 20.

And in fact Mr. Bessent often talks about the need to reprivatize the American economy.

And thereby ending President Biden’s failed big government socialism.

The Trump tax cuts should be comprehensive and permanent and scored as current policy, which means deficit-neutral.

Just like the way CBO scores the current services baseline — where spending increases every year are never repriced.

Mr. Bessent also talked about the importance of reducing government jobs and increasing private jobs. And he gave a strong endorsement to the work of Elon Musk’s DOGE downsizing.

Mr. Bessent is an elegant, old school, South Carolinian gentleman with a brilliant mind and a tremendous intellectual grasp of the key issues that will fulfill Donald Trump’s mission of a new Golden Era for America.

From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business Network.