Scott Bessent

So if you look at the industries where we are taking stakes and moving forward, we've identified five to eight strategic industries where the US, we have to have endogenous production, or at least adjacent to us in North America or this hemisphere.

And I think of it,

as it's the kind of thing that you would have seen during World War II.

And we are in an economic war, and we do not want it to become a kinetic war, but we have to be prepared if it could.

But when we think about huge amount, 80, 90% of the precursor chemicals that go into US pharmaceuticals are made overseas, majority in China or India.

semiconductors.

In my life, I believe that the greatest economic threat to the world economy, to the U.S.

economy, more than the Arab oil embargo that I lived through in the 70s when I was lined up with my parents to...

at the pump to do odd even days because of the oil embargo, the biggest threat is that 97% of the upper level precision chip manufacturer, the advanced chip manufacturers, is made in Taiwan.

And we need to bring a portion of that back to the U.S.

Same for steel, same for shipbuilding, same for pharmaceuticals.

So the interventions are all in those areas.

A couple of points here.

What we are going to see next year that if you think about

the signature parts of the tax bill, I think that the most powerful parts had the immediate expensing for American business, permanent for equipment, and then

four or five year window for factories.

So we are already seeing a CapEx boom.

So 2025 was a CapEx boom.

I think that is going to accelerate with all the trade deals we've done.

I was just about six weeks ago in my hometown of Charleston, South Carolina, Boeing, the largest employer there, is increasing their plant by 50% for the Dreamliners, a result of the trade deals, but it's also part of the tax deal.