Treasury Secretary Bessent says he has divested his soybean farm

Reuters

Sun, December 7, 2025 astatine 2:20 PM CST 1 min read

WASHINGTON, Dec 7 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a cardinal fig successful implementing President Donald Trump's economical docket ​including tariffs, disclosed connected Sunday that helium has precocious ‌divested his interests successful a soybean workplace to comply with the morals statement helium ‌signed past January erstwhile helium joined the administration.

The divestiture comes 4 months aft the U.S. Office of Government Ethics informed the Senate Finance Committee successful an August 11 missive that Bessent had failed to ⁠comply with definite presumption ‌of the statement aimed astatine avoiding immoderate imaginable struggle of interest.

"I'm progressive successful the cultivation industry. I ‍run a soybean farm," Bessent initially told CBS' "Face the Nation" programme portion discussing the U.S. commercialized concern for U.S. farmers. He rapidly added: "I really ​just divested it this week arsenic portion of my morals ‌agreement. So I'm retired of that business."

The New York Times has reported that Bessent owned arsenic overmuch arsenic $25 cardinal of soybean and maize farmland successful North Dakota, including thousands of acres that earned him arsenic overmuch arsenic $1 cardinal a twelvemonth successful rental income.

As portion ⁠of his morals agreement, Bessent pledged ​to divest his Key Square Group hedge ​fund and different assets to debar conflicts of interest. Many of the divestitures were to beryllium completed by ‍April 28, 2025.

In ⁠an August connection issued by the Treasury Department, Bessent said helium had completed each but 4% of the plus divestitures ⁠required by his morals statement and intended to divest the remaining assets by ‌the extremity of the year.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing ‌by Sergio Non and Diane Craft)