The Trump administration is intensifying efforts to identify illegal aliens and crack down on fraud within migrant communities, including a forthcoming executive order that would require banks to collect customers' citizenship information, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday in an exclusive interview with Semafor.
Speaking at Semafor's World Economy event in Washington on Monday, Bessent defended the proposed measure as a national security and financial transparency step, arguing the U.S. lacks sufficient visibility into who participates in its banking system.
The push comes amid a broader Trump administration campaign to curb fraud and tighten oversight tied to illegal immigration.
"It's in process. And I don't think it's unreasonable, because: Why don't we have information on who's in our banking system?" Bessent said.
"I have a place in the UK; they want to know who lives in every apartment, and how do we know that it's not part of a foreign terrorist organization?," he added.
On the broader economic outlook, Bessent acknowledged the U.S. may need to "make up" lost ground but maintained that growth could still approach earlier projections near 4%.
He also suggested the Iran conflict could ultimately yield long-term geopolitical stability, though he did not specify a timeline.
Beyond monetary policy, Bessent discussed regulatory and financial system concerns, including support for increased scrutiny of prediction markets, coordination with banks on AI-related cybersecurity risks and skepticism toward China's reliability as a supplier of critical materials.
He also floated the idea of new governing structures such as a "Board of Trade" or "Board of Investment" to manage economic policy.
On the topic of President Donald Trump's pick to run the Federal Reserve, Kevin Warsh, Bessent said he likes the idea of someone with an open mind.
Bessent said his main criterion for Fed nominees is intellectual flexibility, but used the moment to sharply criticize the central bank's structure, arguing it has grown into an unwieldy bureaucracy.
"With the Fed, you expect a monetary policy board, but you never think there's this sprawling organization up there," he said.
Bessent said Warsh would scrutinize how the regional Federal Reserve banks operate and interact, an area Bessent described as a "management disaster," claiming many staff don't report clearly through leadership chains.
James Morley III ✉
James Morley III is a writer with more than two decades of experience in entertainment, travel, technology, and science and nature.
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