WASHINGTON, Oct 20 (Reuters) – US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday that there was not much a Democrat-led House of Representatives could do to stop the Trump administration’s agenda.
“I think there’s very little,” Bessent said in an interview on 2Way TV two weeks ahead of November’s midterm elections.
“We have very durable tariff authorities,” he said, referring to Democrats’ opposition to Trump broadly imposing tariffs on goods imported from countries around the world.
Control of Congress is at stake as voters head to the polls on November 3 to choose members of the House of Representatives and Senate and governors in states across the country. The Republican Party currently has a narrow majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The election comes as Trump’s approval rating has dipped over his handling of the high cost of living for Americans during the US-Israeli war with Iran that has raised fuel prices.
Bessent said the Treasury’s effort to isolate Iran economically was working.
“We haven’t seen any loadings at the Iranian oil facility on Kharg Island since August. Iran currently has no oil on the water,” he said.
“Panic is starting to set in … I don’t know whether it’s going to take four more weeks or eight more weeks, but at a point, their economy will go nonlinear,” he said.
Bessent also said he had not heard whether Russian President Vladimir Putin had accepted Trump’s invitation to attend the G20 summit in Florida in December.
“I haven’t seen his RSVP yea or nay yet,” Bessent said.
Trump has said Russia has agreed to supply diesel to global markets, and his administration temporarily lifted US sanctions on Russian fuel designed to deprive Moscow of revenue for its war in Ukraine.
(Reporting by Katharine Jackson; editing by Michelle Nichols)
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