Speech · Administration
Bessent at the Reagan Forum: economic security is national security.
The Treasury Secretary tells the Reagan National Economic Forum that a nation unable to manufacture, mine, ship, or refine what it needs gradually cedes its sovereignty — and names the principle the postwar consensus lost.
Somewhere along the way, we lost sight of a foundational principle that previous generations understood instinctively: economic security is national security, for a nation that cannot manufacture, mine, ship, or refine its needs gradually cedes its strength—and sovereignty—to others. That is a dangerous dependency for any country. It is an unacceptable one for the United States.
The Reagan Forum speech is the diagnosis. Bessent's account of what went wrong — trade policy run in one silo, security policy in another, on the assumption that the world would honor the distinction — names the failure the doctrine exists to correct. Dependency accumulated gradually, and then it became leverage.
The remedy he sketches is the doctrine's division of labor: supply chains with trusted partners where appropriate, rebuilt capacity at home where necessary, and an economic architecture that strengthens rather than undermines American security. Read in sequence with what followed, May 29 is the setup. Bessent diagnosed the loss at the Reagan Forum. Twenty-five days later, at the Economic Club of New York, he named what recovers it.