Bessent Urges Investors to Bet on Trump’s Economic Plan for ‘Industrial Abundance’

In a wide-ranging and unapologetically pro-growth address Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent laid out the Trump administration’s economic vision for the next four years, calling on global investors to align with what he described as a “new Golden Age” for American enterprise.

Speaking before an audience of business leaders, financiers, and policymakers at the Milken Institute’s annual Global Conference, Bessent delivered what amounted to a comprehensive blueprint for the administration’s domestic agenda—one built around three interlocking pillars: strategic tariffs, aggressive tax incentives, and sweeping deregulation.

“Our goal is not simply to grow the economy,” Bessent said. “It’s to re-anchor global capital in the United States and unleash a new age of industrial abundance.”

A Visionary Framing: From Soil, To Seed, To Harvest

Bessent opened by invoking the legacy of Michael Milken himself, praising the conference’s founder as a rare figure who defied consensus and changed finance by backing high-yield bonds in the 1970s. He then drew a direct line between Milken’s unorthodox success and President Trump’s economic model.

“Mike overturned decades of orthodoxy to redirect capital to new industries. His colleagues called him delusional,” Bessent said. “But history proved him right. Sound familiar?”

In that comparison, Bessent framed Trump as a similarly visionary figure who had defied elite skepticism to deliver results. The goal of the administration, he said, is to create what the president has called “a new Golden Age”—and that begins with cultivating the right conditions for investment.

“For the past 100 days, we have been preparing the soil,” he said. “We have uprooted government waste and harmful regulations. We have planted the seeds of private investment. And we have fertilized the ground with fresh tax legislation. Next, we harvest.”

Tariffs as Investment Incentives

At the heart of Bessent’s remarks was the argument that the Trump administration’s approach to economic policy is not a collection of isolated initiatives, but a unified framework designed to generate sustained, long-term investment. He described trade policy, tax reform, and deregulation as “interlocking parts of an engine,” each reinforcing the others to drive capital formation, industrial expansion, and job creation.

Trade policy, he said, is structured to level the global playing field for American workers and companies by encouraging supply chains to reorient toward domestic production. Tariffs, in this view, are not punitive measures but strategic incentives aimed at drawing investment back inside U.S. borders. “Tariffs are engineered to encourage companies like yours to invest directly in the United States,” Bessent said. “Hire your workers here. Build your factories here. Make your products here.”

Tax policy is being reshaped through what President Trump has dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which is expected to include a permanent extension of the small business deduction, full expensing for equipment purchases, and an expansion of that benefit to cover the construction of new factories. Bessent also highlighted planned tax credits for research and development, which he said would accelerate growth in high-tech and strategic sectors critical to national competitiveness.

Regulatory reform is intended to streamline the investment process and eliminate long-standing bureaucratic delays. Bessent emphasized the administration’s effort to overhaul permitting rules for energy and infrastructure development. Executive orders already signed by the president are designed to cut federal approval times from years to mere months—a change Bessent said would unleash a wave of private-sector activity. “The President doesn’t want to just ‘Drill, baby, drill,’” he said. “He wants to ‘Build, baby, build.’”

America as the Schelling Point

One of the most striking moments in Bessent’s remarks came when he described the United States as the natural “Schelling point” of global investment—a concept from game theory that denotes the obvious place to coordinate when no other communication is possible.

“We have the world’s reserve currency, the deepest and most liquid markets, and the strongest property rights,” Bessent said. “The administration’s goal is to make the U.S. even more appealing for investors like you.”

That appeal, he emphasized, was not speculative. Since President Trump returned to office in January, companies have pledged to invest “trillions” into the U.S. economy, according to Bessent. “President Trump has secured more investment for our country in 100 days than President Biden did during all four years,” he said.

The term “Schelling point” comes from the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist and game theorist Thomas Schelling, who introduced the concept in his 1960 book The Strategy of Conflict. It refers to the outcome that individuals tend to choose in a coordination problem when communication is not possible—because it seems natural, prominent, or mutually obvious. Schelling famously illustrated this with a thought experiment in which people, asked to meet in New York without any prior arrangement, instinctively converged on noon at Grand Central Station. In Bessent’s usage, the metaphor casts the United States as the global economy’s natural point of convergence: the default destination for capital due to its market depth, legal protections, and economic resilience.

Surge in Entrepreneurship

That investment trend is mirrored by a sharp increase in domestic entrepreneurship. Citing newly released data, Bessent noted that March saw one of the highest levels on record for new business applications.

“Entrepreneurs are starting to understand what the President is trying to accomplish,” he said. “Many of these men and women—like many of you—are grasping that ‘America First’ is the blueprint for a more abundant world.”

Bessent built his case to a rhetorical crescendo by listing the tangible outcomes the administration hopes to achieve—“more jobs, more homes, more growth, more factories, more critical manufacturing plants, more semiconductors, more energy, more opportunity, more defense, more economic security, more innovation.”

This vision, he said, is not theoretical. “The result of the President’s economic plan will be More—more of all the things we need most,” he declared.

He added that this abundance agenda is not just for Wall Street, but for Main Street as well. “The United States is entering a new Golden Age of economic prosperity for both Main Street and Wall Street,” he said. “And we don’t want anyone to get left behind.”

Betting on America

Bessent closed by recalling a well-known line from Warren Buffett: “Never bet against America.” But he used the line not as a reassurance, but as a challenge to investors worldwide.

“US markets are antifragile,” he said. “Throw whatever you will at our capital markets—the Great Depression, two World Wars, 9/11, a global recession, the COVID pandemic, or the last few years of sky-high inflation. Each time the American economy gets knocked down, it gets back up again—stronger than it was before.”

Echoing a chart of the S&P 500 over the past century, he said, “The entirety of our economic history can be distilled in just five words: ‘Up and to the right.’”

The message to investors was unmistakable: The time to commit capital to America is now—or risk missing the moment.

“Come with us,” Bessent said in closing. “So we can build a more abundant America together.”