U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Reuters=Yonhap News

Scott Bessent, the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, stated on the 7th (local time) regarding the U.S. economic outlook, "We will end the year with real GDP growth of 3%."

In an interview with CBS broadcast on the same day, Secretary Bessent said, "The economy has been better than we expected."

Secretary Bessent added, "We are now focusing on tackling inflation," and "We expect inflation to fall significantly next year."

When asked about accusations that the Donald Trump administration failed to properly address inflation, he repeatedly countered that the problem originated from the previous Joe Biden administration.

Secretary Bessent said, "The Biden administration created the worst inflation in the last 50 years," adding, "The Democratic Party created supply shortages through the energy sector and excessive regulation, which has resulted in today's cost-of-living problems."

He further stated, "Import inflation is lower than the overall inflation index," and "What is currently driving inflation is the service economy, which is actually unrelated to tariffs."

This was a rebuttal to the argument that tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on a wide range of goods led to increased import prices, passing the cost burden onto consumers.

He also explained, "The prices of groceries, gasoline, and rent, which the working class actually consumes, are going down."

Secretary Bessent further noted that two factors burdening consumers with costs are inflation and real income, stating, "Real income has increased by about 1%."

He then commented, "I believe we will move towards prosperity next year."

Meanwhile, regarding whether China would accelerate its imports of U.S. soybeans, Secretary Bessent said, "China will not speed up its purchases," and explained that China's soybean purchases are proceeding according to the schedule agreed upon by the two countries.

Previously, Presidents Trump and Xi Jinping agreed at their summit in October to suspend some of the additional tariffs and trade retaliation measures they had imposed on each other. Following this, China resumed its imports of U.S. soybeans, which had been halted.

Regarding the Trump administration's decision to provide bridge payments to farmers, Secretary Bessent explained that the damage to farmers from China's previous suspension of soybean imports had not yet been recovered, stating that they are trying to create a "bridge" to fill that gap.