Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on March 2, 2025, unveiled the Trump administration’s big plan to bring down prices: An “affordability czar.” Al Drago/Pool/CNP/ZUMA
On Sunday morning, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on Face the Nation on CBS to make an announcement: His department will appoint a new “affordability czar” tasked with bringing down prices for consumers.
What does this actually mean? Great question. (Host Margaret Brennan seemed confounded by it as well, asking, “What does that mean? What’s an affordability czar?”) According to Bessent, the czar’s job will be to identify five to eight priority areas where the administration should focus to bring down prices. It’s unclear who will fill that role, or when; spokespeople for the White House and Treasury Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announces that the Treasury Department is going to appoint an “affordability czar,” which he says will be “someone who picks the five or eight areas where this administration can make a big difference for working class Americans,” and also create… pic.twitter.com/mYIDxCG530
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) March 2, 2025
In some ways, this is unsurprising. First off, Trump loves a “czar”—someone he can appoint, without Senate approval, to take charge of a particular policy area. Tom Homan is the “border czar”; Doug Bergum is the “energy czar”; Trump recently announced Alice Marie Johnson, whose cause Kim Kardashian took up during Trump’s first term, will be the “pardon czar.”
And Americans are indeed feeling the pain of inflation—and many of them are blaming Trump for it: A new CBS/YouGov poll out Sunday found that the economy and inflation are the top two issues people want Trump to prioritize, but they are the two issues they think he is prioritizing least.
But it’s unclear how, exactly, an “affordability czar” will bring about change for average Americans’ budgets, particularly considering that President Trump is set to enact tariffs on Mexico and Canada, and double tariffs on China, in the coming week. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Fox News on Sunday that Trump will determine the exact tariff amounts on Tuesday.
The tariffs could cost the average American household more than $1,200 a year.
As Brennan pointed out to Bessent on Sunday, the nonpartisan Peterson Institute for International Economics estimates that based on the proposal Trump put forth last month before pausing it—25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico and a 10 percent increase on tariffs on Chinese goods—the tariffs would cost the average American household more than $1,200 a year because goods will become more expensive. (Bessent called the Peterson Institute “alarmist” and said “they take an anti-tariff position,” adding that he believes inflation will be reduced this year.)
Not to mention that the Republican budget resolution passed this past week greenlit trillions in tax breaks and spending cuts expected to hurt low-income Americans relying on Medicaid and other social services. Plus, Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency is seeking to dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has helped protect people from predatory lenders and financial scams, as my colleague Abby Vesoulis reported. And, as my colleague Isabela Dias has reported, if Trump’s mass deportation plan actually gets carried out, research suggests it could raise the prices of food and construction—industries immigrants play huge roles in. A January report by financial services company Allianz Trade estimated the immigration crackdown could drag down the country’s GDP growth rate to under 2 percent by 2026.
So, if the “affordability czar” truly wants to bring down prices, he or she may be required to defy the GOP—starting with Trump.
