Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent might win points with his boss, President Trump, for his intervention in the market for U.S. Treasuries — doubling its buybacks to at least $4 billion — but he will earn no points from the bond vigilantes.
The history of such market interventions is littered with failures. Given Bessent’s participation in the Soros raid on the pound in 1992, when the Bank of England and the U.K. Treasury were forced to devalue sterling, one would have thought that Bessent knew that markets have a way of outsmarting government officials.
