Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday offered a full-throated defense of the White House's position on tariffs, insisting that, "Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream." In a speech delivered to a crowd of leading economists,

“Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream,” Bessent told the Economic Club of New York. “The American Dream is rooted in the concept that any citizen can achieve prosperity, upward mobility, and economic security. For too long, the designers of multilateral trade deals have lost sight of this.”

International economic relations that do not work for the American people must be reexamined,” he said at the Economic Club of New York.