Bessent hasn’t sold his North Dakota farmland

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has failed to fully comply with an agreement that required him to divest his financial assets, posing potential conflicts of interest as he leads the Trump administration’s economic policy agenda, The New York Times reported today.

“The biggest potential conflict of interest for Mr. Bessent is his ownership of as much as $25 million of soybean and corn farmland in North Dakota,” the Times said. “The land spans thousands of acres in Burleigh, Kidder, Eddy, Benson and Wells counties, and earns Mr. Bessent as much as $1 million a year in rental income, according to his financial disclosure form.”

“The sale of Mr. Bessent’s farms could be complicated by the U.S. trade war with China, which the treasury secretary has been actively trying to defuse,” the Times added.