Remarks from Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent at The Economic Club of New York’s America 250 Gala Dinner: American Economic Statecraft in the 21st Century

As prepared for delivery.Thank you for the invitation to be here on this wonderful occasion.As a long-time member of the Economic Club of New York, I know that it occupies a place of great significance in our nation’s discourse. For generations, few institutions have done more to shape how we confront the defining questions of the day. And yet, across all those years, tonight’s gathering is without precedent as we assemble on the eve of an extraordinary moment in our history.Over the coming days, we will celebrate 250 years of the American story and the proposition with which it began: that a free people answer to no power but their own.But milestones of this magnitude demand more than ceremony.They ask something of us.