U.S. Department of the Treasury

Money Moves

Home agency for Bessent; manages internal ethics screening while defending his role in trade and farm policy

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent entered office in January 2025 with an ethics agreement committing him to sell extensive personal holdings, including up to $25 million in North Dakota soybean and corn farmland that earned as much as $1 million a year in rent. After months of delays and an August 2025 warning from the Office of Government Ethics that he had failed to timely comply, Bessent announced on December 7, 2025, that he had finally divested the soybean farm "this week," completing the most glaring conflict-of-interest obligation.

Updated Dec 11, 2025