Bessent: US Industrial Decline Was a Policy Choice, Now Reversed

Bessent is reframing industrial policy as a deliberate reversal rather than a cyclical recovery, which matters because it ties the manufacturing rebound directly to the tariff reset and tax package — making both politically load-bearing. The beneficiaries are the sectors and workers behind the ten-month expansion and 101,000 added jobs, though the record pre-COVID job openings signal labor demand running ahead of available workers. The open question is whether that hiring gap persists as output keeps rising, or whether the policy-driven expansion outpaces the workforce needed to sustain it.