The United States has about 60% of the world's computing power today, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says it will have 80% of it by 2028.
The story in the papers that morning was Treasury debt management — which maturities to sell and when. Larry Kudlow opened by saying that was the wrong story, and the secretary spent the interview on two others: an investment boom he credits to full expensing, and a supply chain he intends to move out of other countries' reach.
"In two years the Strait of Hormuz will be a worthless piece of water. The oil will be going on pipelines across land."
Bessent is the 79th Treasury secretary and was hosting the G20 finance ministers in Asheville, North Carolina, the week he said it, which is where this interview was recorded.
I listened to the full segment so you can skip it.
Here are the 11 takeaways that matter.
👤 Guest: Scott Bessent, the 79th US Treasury secretary, who hosted the G20 finance ministers' meeting in Asheville, North Carolina
🎙️ Host: Larry Kudlow, who presents Kudlow on Fox Business and conducted this interview at the G20 meeting
📰 Published: 1 September 2026 on Fox Business, and on the Kudlow podcast feed
🟣 Apple Podcasts | ⏱️ 46 min
Key Takeaways
The US compute share goes from about 60% to 80% of the world's total in three years Bessent's framing is that the country is not leading the AI build-out but pulling away from it
Inflation expectations are flat to down, so the bond yield is a growth signal rather than an inflation one
The Strait of Hormuz stops being a chokepoint in two years because the oil moves onto land pipelines He says it is already not a chokepoint for the US, only for other countries
The target is 35% of advanced semiconductor production inside the US by the end of the decade
The US does not make amoxicillin, and that is the argument against maximum efficiency "Maximum efficiency is not maximally secure"
Full expensing, not demand, is what he says is driving the capital spending boom Boeing's Charleston plant is expanding 50%, and construction jobs come before the manufacturing jobs
Government employment is down about 370,000 since the inauguration while private employment rose
Most of the hard economic data in this interview came from the host, not the guest Kudlow read the orders, shipments and backlog numbers and the oil production figure himself
1. The boom, not the bond story
Kudlow opened by rejecting the day's financial-press story before asking a question.
He said the debt-management story was the wrong one to lead on. "Newspapers are running a very odd story as though Treasury debt management for retiring off the run long bonds is the most important economic event, and it is not."
His own framing was the opposite. "The most important event right now in the American economy is we are in an economic boom." He credited President Trump's policies and the secretary's, naming the One Big Beautiful Bill, the tax cuts and 100% depreciation His list of what the boom consists of: manufacturing growth, construction growth, employment growth in both, an AI build-out, a stock market rally and rising corporate profits
Bessent's answer put the bond market on the same side of the argument. "If we look at the composition of the bond yields, it's the inflation expectations are flat to down" The plain meaning of that: the extra yield investors demand is being read as compensation for faster growth rather than for faster inflation
He said the pace is picking up. "And this is a growth story. Growth, I believe, is reaccelerating." He said the G20 delegates agreed growth had been better than they expected given the Iran conflict, while adding that everyone is cautious about what comes next
2. 80% of compute by 2028
The single largest claim in the interview is a share of world computing capacity. "The amount of compute that the U.S. has relevant to global compute, we're going to go up from about call it 60% in 2025, by 2028 the U.S. will have 80% of global computing power here which is just extraordinary."
Bessent framed it not as leadership but as separation: the US sits in a special place in the world because it is the AI superpower, and it is pulling away
The figure is his, not a government release, and he gave no source for it on air
3. The world's energy exporter
He put the case for investment on three kinds of predictability, and added a fourth advantage. "Regulatory certainty, tax certainty and energy certainty, because the U.S. is also the world's energy superpower." He said the president tasked the administration with cutting the regulatory burden, and that this was part of what the G20 meeting was discussing
The energy point is about direction of trade, not just production. He said the US is now exporting energy to the rest of the world, and concluded: "So, you know, I don't think that we are in any kind of a dire situation."
He said the G20 invitation list went beyond the 20 largest economies to countries the administration views as systemically important allies
4. Best bond market since 2025
He claimed the top spot in both asset classes among large economies. "And since President Trump came into office, since January 20th, 2025, it's been the best performing bond market among major countries in the world." He said August alone was also the best, while conceding that "what happens over a month doesn't matter"
The stock market claim came with it, and he said the same on the previous day
5. Profits, and 100% expensing
The interview turned to a Wall Street Journal front-page story on corporate profits, which one of the two men said the paper had taken too long to run.
The figure the segment led with was earnings growth. S&P 500 profits were put at 53% higher year on year, with Wall Street economists cited as looking for 25% growth in future earnings
The causal claim is that the tax bill bought the capital spending. With 100% depreciation a company writes off the cost of an investment in the year it is made rather than spreading it over years, which is what Bessent said produced "a capex boom" in machinery, equipment, buildings and AI construction He listed three separate provisions: 100% expensing on equipment, on factories and on agricultural structures
Construction jobs are the leading indicator, not manufacturing jobs. "My hometown, Charleston, South Carolina, Boeing is doing a 50% increase in their factory there which produces the Dreamliners that will be a thousand great-paying jobs." A tweet putting goods-producing jobs up 105,000 year to date came up in the exchange, and Bessent's reply was that "the preamble for the manufacturing jobs are construction jobs"
He offered the construction unions as evidence that the politics has turned. "Yeah, the data centers, the construction unions came back and pushed back against the data center backlash" His account is that the unions said they would go after anyone who attacks data center projects
6. Orders up 16.2% in 3 months
The run of hard numbers on the manufacturing cycle came from Kudlow, reading them at the secretary rather than asking about them.
The host's own figures, on nondefense capital goods orders excluding aircraft: "Last three months, 16.2%. Shipments last three months, 16.7%. Backlogs, 9.2%. Year on year, 13% increase, okay? We've never seen anything like this before."
The conclusion he drew from them was a policy one: that tax incentives and deregulation both produce growth
He also supplied the oil production number, citing the Energy Department for US output of 13.8 million barrels a day and a path to 14.5 to 15 million barrels next year
7. 3-3-3 and the barrel count
Bessent answered the oil figure with his own program rather than the host's number.
His 3-3-3 program set an energy target of 3 million barrels a day of crude equivalent. "And right now if we think about crude, nat gas, all the other adjacent fuels, we are already up about 1.6 or 2.2 million barrels a day since the president's inauguration." He gave the figure as a range rather than a point, and counted natural gas and adjacent fuels in it, not crude alone
He added that exports are a large part of it, and Kudlow agreed
8. Government jobs down 370K
He put the labor market shift as a transfer between sectors. Government employment is down about 370,000 since the president took office; private employment is up, and the figure was given first as 90,000 and then restated on air as 900,000
He called it a restructuring rather than a contraction, and said the restructuring of what he termed Biden big government socialism is itself promoting growth
The wage claim is that the gains went to the bottom of the ladder. He said the bottom 25% of the income distribution has seen the highest wage increases, at 4.7%, and credited the private sector rather than policy for real wage growth
The AI point he made at the G20 was about adoption, not models. "And we had pharma executives and manufacturing executives. And more than talk about their businesses, they talked about how they are integrating A.I. into them." He said it was the first time a G20 had seated private-sector participants, and that what interested him was the productivity and the higher precision in manufacturing across supply chains and customer bases
9. The 21% inflation hangover
Kudlow used the middle of the interview to make a general argument rather than ask a question, and said so — he wanted the secretary's message out.
His frame is free-market capitalism against state direction. "My good friend Newt Gingrich calls it big government socialism."
The number he attached to the previous four years is a cumulative one. "We had a dose of that in the prior four years, and we have virtually no growth and a 21% cumulative inflation rate." His point is that a cumulative price level does not come back down when the annual rate falls, which is why he called it a hangover
He argued the case is empirical rather than ideological, saying the theory is no good if the facts do not back it up, and that here they do
10. The poorest voted for Milei
Bessent's read on who votes for socialism in the US is a demographic one. "When we look at the demographic of those voters, they are overeducated and underearning." "These are underachievers who are jealous of those who want to go and work every day"
He said Argentina's election ran the other way. "And if you were to dissect the last election that President Milei had, it was the poorest segment of society and the young people who came out and voted for him"
He named a regional pattern rather than a single case, listing Argentina, Colombia, Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador, and said more could follow
On Japan, he called Abenomics a restructuring of the economy and a reflationary program, singling out the deregulatory part and the shift toward private-sector jobs, and said Japan can now sit back and enjoy the benefits
Kudlow said the Western Hemisphere is a generational opportunity led by Argentina, where everyone said the reforms could not be done and inflation has since dropped
The G20 dinner produced a read on Europe as well: the finance ministers of Poland and Italy are both pushing reforms, Italy's without success, and Europe overall is "too sclerotic" and needs "a dose of deregulation"
11. Chokepoints and onshoring
Kudlow read a passage from Bessent's own economic statecraft speech and asked him to expand on it.
The passage he read: "The first and foundational principle is that economic security begins with national capacity, the ability to build, invent, finance and scale the industries that will define the next century." The speech named semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum computing and advanced technologies, and the principle Kudlow highlighted was that the country must never be left dependent on a foreign chokepoint
Bessent's answer put reciprocity ahead of free trade as a principle. "Nobody likes protectionism, but there has to be reciprocity." He said the policy started in the first term and is continuing, and that onshoring has become an important theme for the economy On China: he said the aim is not to pull apart from them but to reduce dependence, and that the same applies everywhere in the world
The Hormuz claim is the sharpest forecast in the interview. "It's not a chokepoint for the U.S., but it is a chokepoint for many other countries." "In two years the Strait of Hormuz will be a worthless piece of water. The oil will be going on pipelines across land"
The pharmaceutical example is the one he expected the audience to feel. "We do not produce amoxicillin here in the U.S." He said the pandemic's one useful effect was showing where the chokepoints are — semiconductors, critical minerals, and the precursor chemicals for medicines
He rejected the argument that markets will fix it. "And I think what we've learned is that maximum efficiency is not maximally secure."
The semiconductor target is specific and dated. "We're trying to bring 35% of the semiconductor production, advanced semiconductor production, back into the U.S. by the end of the president's term or by the end of the decade."
On the president's investment claims he neither confirmed nor disowned the arithmetic. Kudlow said the president embellishes just a wee bit; Bessent's reply was "Your words, not mine. Your words, Larry." "But when he talks about trillions, trillions of dollars being invested here, whatever the exact number is his point is well taken" — money coming from the Middle East, Europe and Asia
Bonus Insights
The industrial argument extends past the factories to the workforce. "Well, not only is it important to have a steel industry, it is important to have the tradition of craftsmanship." His example is the Second World War, when private industry converted to military production because the workers and the skills were already there. His conclusion: "There are certain things that we need to onshore or near shore."
Bessent opened on Asheville rather than on policy, noting Hurricane Helene hit the area about two years ago, that he grew up visiting and keeps a house about an hour away, and that he hoped G20 attendees would come back
Kudlow introduced him as the 79th Treasury secretary and, in his own words, "the best, most important wartime Treasury Secretary since World War II"
The administration is running a parallel technology track at Chapel Hill during the same week, which Bessent said the Commerce Department and the White House technology office are running, and he noted the president took a group of executives to Beijing for the state visit
Bessent's summary of the division of labor between government and business: set the guardrails, create the incentives, then let the private sector go, because that is where a nation's wealth is created
Bessent's bottom line is that the tax bill and deregulation have produced a capital spending boom the press is not covering, and that the next phase of policy is pulling semiconductors, medicines and critical minerals back inside the country before someone else uses them as leverage.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Boeing (Its Charleston, South Carolina plant, which builds the Dreamliner, is expanding by 50% — Bessent's example that construction jobs arrive before manufacturing jobs, and worth about a thousand jobs)
The Wall Street Journal (Ran the front-page corporate profits story the interview built on, and took a jab in return for being "more of a teachers' paper now")
S&P 500 (The index whose profits were put at 53% higher year on year, against Wall Street forecasts of 25% growth ahead)
US Department of Energy (The source Kudlow cited for US crude output of 13.8 million barrels a day)
Amoxicillin (Bessent's chosen example of a medicine the US does not produce at all, and the reason he says supply chains are a security question)
The G20 finance ministers' meeting (Hosted by Bessent in Asheville, and the first, he said, to seat private-sector executives alongside the ministers)
Books & Resources Mentioned
American Economic Statecraft in the 21st Century – Scott Bessent (The speech Kudlow read aloud from, which sets out national capacity and the ban on foreign chokepoints as founding principles)
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