Scott Bessent has gained a reputation as one of Donald Trump’s suavest enablers but his dismissal of Denmark as “irrelevant” is likely to earn him a place in the annals of infamy rather than diplomacy.
The US treasury secretary’s tactless put-down of a Nato ally has come as the annual world economic forum at Davos has cast him into the international limelight at the very moment when Trump is upping the ante to take over Greenland, which is Danish sovereign territory.
The timing has propelled Bessent into the unaccustomed – and perhaps unwanted – role as chief defender of Trump’s latest foreign policy stunt to a critical European audience.
Winning over troubled allies trying to uphold the foundations of a longstanding military alliance may not be the task that Bessent foresaw for himself when he took over the reins of the treasury department last January.
For all his self-assured plausible manner, it shows.
Apart from the Denmark jibe, his attempt to allay the anxieties of perturbed Europeans and – according to polls – a bewildered majority of American voters has been characterised by a maladroit blend of condescension and clumsiness.
Addressing journalists in Davos on Tuesday, he struck a discordant note in cautioning eight European allies not to retaliate against Trump’s imposition of tariffs because of their opposition to his Greenland demands.
“What I am urging everyone here to do is sit back, take a deep breath, and let things play out. The worst thing countries can do is escalate against the United States,” he said, having accused critics of “hysteria”.
His “sit back” comment provoked mockery on social media.
Bessent was scarcely more diplomatic about the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and Ursula von der Leyen, both of whom he accused of “inflammatory statements”. Macron, he added, was presiding over a French budgetary “shambles”.
His efforts to justify the Greenland gambit to the US media have been similarly inelegant.
He gave a tortured response on NBC’s Meet the Press when asked what national emergency justified Trump’s resort to slapping tariffs on countries opposed to his demands.
“The national emergency is avoiding a national emergency,” he said. “It is a strategic decision by the president. This is a geopolitical decision. And he is able to use the economic might of the US to avoid a hot war. So why wouldn’t we do that?”
Asked by Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo how he justified taking over a country when Greenlanders and Danes are opposed, Bessent, in the middle of a long answer, said the territory was becoming “more and more attractive for foreign conquest”. He appeared to be referring to Russia and China, yet the remark seemed tone deaf to the fact that the very same criticisms were being levelled at Trump.
Bessent’s combativeness on Trump’s behalf has long been familiar domestically.
Last year, he reportedly became embroiled in a heated confrontation in the White House with Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, over the latter’s stewardship of the unofficial “department of government efficiency”, or Doge, with Bessent criticizing Musk’s failure to deliver promised spending cuts.
The pair clashed in the Oval Office in front of Trump before getting into a physical scuffle in the hallway, witnesses said.
Bessent has also shown his willingness to be a loyal surrogate in Trump’s feud with Jerome Powell, who the president is seeking to replace as chairman of the Federal Reserve, the US central bank, because of his reluctance to cut interest rates.
He accused Powell this week of “politicising the Fed” after attending oral arguments at the US supreme court over whether Trump has the authority to remove one of the bank’s governors, Lisa Cook. The New York Times pointed out that Bessent himself had previously attended oral arguments at the court.
The first out gay man to be treasury secretary, Bessent’s pro-Trump pugnaciousness seems at odds with some aspects of his past.
With financial assets worth $521m according to the US office of government ethics, Bessent, 63, made his fortune as a partner of Soros Fund Management, the hedge fund of the Hungarian-born philanthropist George Soros – long a beta noire among Trump’s Maga acolytes because of his support for liberal causes.
In 1992, Bessent was a key strategist in one of the most notorious moments in British political history – Soros’s bet against sterling, which triggered Black Wednesday, and forced John Major’s government to withdraw the pound from the European exchange rate mechanism.
He accrued further wealth after founding the Key Square Group, a global macro investment firm, and established himself as a Republican donor, making donations to Trump’s Super Pac and the Republican National Committee.
Another financial venture was All Seasons Press, a publishing company launched in 2021 with a goal of publishing conservative authors spurned by more established houses, although Bessent’s backing was initially kept under wraps.
The company bought the rights to works by Mark Meadows, White House chief of staff in Trump’s first presidency, and Peter Navarro, the president’s trade adviser, as well as a biography of Tucker Carlson, the broadcaster and rightwing influencer.
But disclosure in a court case that Bessent was the financial force behind the company triggered a rightwing backlash because of his previous links with Soros. He sold the publishing house in 2024, saying ruefully that he had thought the enterprise “would be fun”.
Answering critics of his history with Soros, Bessent said he had not spoken to his former mentor since December 2016 – the month after Trump was elected for the first time.
