Bessent, Warsh talk growth, inflation

Eli Lilly CEO Dave Ricks told CNBC the company has pursued more deals so far this year than all of last year, as it leverages a massive financial windfall from its blockbuster obesity and diabetes drugs.

Lilly on Monday said it would acquire privately held Merida Biosciences for up to $2.88 billion in cash, strengthening its immunology portfolio with an experimental treatment for thyroid-related autoimmune conditions. The pharmaceutical giant is investing in other disease areas to expand and diversify its drug pipeline beyond obesity and diabetes.

“We have been very active,” Ricks told CNBC’s Sara Eisen. “The company’s doing well. We’re generating a lot of cash flow. We’d rather invest that in our future and in future medicines for patients, and so this deal with Merida is just one more of those.”

— Annika Kim Constantino

Bessent insisted that Treasury yields have been “flat” since Trump took office last year. Yields, though, have moved somewhat higher amid pressure from tariffs and persistent inflation.

“The 10-year yield is flat since President Trump came in,” Bessent told CNBC’s Sara Eisen during an interview on the sidelines of the G20 meeting. Noting that Fitch Ratings had affirmed its “AA+” grade on U.S. debt, he added, “If there were a problem in the U.S. bond market, Sara, then people would be selling U.S. bonds and buying other countries’ bonds. But we are the best-performing market.”

Yields on U.S. government debt, which recently passed $40 trillion, have been volatile, however.

The benchmark 10-year yield has risen about 15 basis points since Trump took office in January 2025. Likewise, the 30-year yield is up some 40 basis points during the same period. Both were also higher in Monday trading.

While the moves are not dramatic, the elevated nature of yields has added to the debt burden, putting interest paid as the largest federal expenditure outside Social Security and Medicare.

On the Fitch affirmation, the firm also noted that “high fiscal deficits, a substantial interest burden, and high and rising government debt levels constrain the rating” and cautioned that the White House and Congress have “not taken meaningful actions” on the debt and deficit problem.

— Jeff Cox

The G20 participants have “identified several impediments” to economic growth, Bessent said at the start of a growth-focused breakout session.

The obstacles include “excessive regulatory and administrative burdens, poorly designed financial incentives and tax systems, insufficient public and private investment, internal market fragmentation and gaps in workforce skills and mobility,” he said.

The Cabinet secretary asserted that the U.S. under Trump is “setting the pace in addressing each of these policy failures.”

— Kevin Breuninger

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said he doesn’t see “a lot of risks” in the borrowing and credit system at the moment.

“We’re watching it closely, and I’m not overly concerned at the moment,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” from Asheville.

He added that he’s seeing an “extraordinary” productivity boom but that it’s “not a straight line,” especially with disruptions from the Middle East.

– Laya Neelakandan

Bessent renewed his criticism of Sen. Elizabeth Warren Monday over what he called an error in her letter questioning the U.S. intervention to support the Japanese yen.

“What she hasn’t responded to” is the mistake Bessent identified in the letter, he said, noting that Warren serves on the Senate Finance Committee.

Warren’s Aug. 13 letter incorrectly suggested in its opening paragraph that Japan could owe money to the U.S. Treasury. The letter later correctly described the intervention as Treasury selling euros and buying yen and noted that Japan had not borrowed from the U.S.

Bessent’s written response last week did not disclose how much yen Treasury purchased, the execution rate or the position’s current value.

— Luke Fountain

As finance ministers gather in Asheville, U.S. business leaders are among the invited guests.

Inclusion of CEOs in the G20 finance ministers meeting marks a first, according to a senior Treasury official, who said the administration is using its G20 presidency to promote engagement with the private sector.

Executives in attendance include Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, incoming Truist Bank CEO Mike Lyons, Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks, Deere & Co. CEO John May, Medtronic CEO Geoff Martha, and 3M CEO Bill Brown.

— Mary Catherine Wellons

Bessent insisted to CNBC that the U.S. plan to choke Iran’s economy by slapping sanctions on its financial enablers can work even if China, Tehran’s top trade partner and oil buyer, doesn’t play ball.

“I would push back on that false narrative that somehow the media has jumped on this, ‘Oh, you can’t do it without China,'” he told CNBC’s Sara Eisen.

“Well, you can,” he said, “because one of the things is there’s only the 30 million of Iranian barrels of Iranian oil left on the water because of the blockade. So even if they were to get remittances from China, that’s going to run out.”

China has publicly said it opposes “illicit unilateral sanctions that have no basis in international law.” Bessent suggested to CNBC that Beijing may be less resistant behind the scenes.

“We have more in common with the Chinese on Iran than we disagree on,” he added. “The Chinese agree that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. The Chinese agree that the [Strait of Hormuz] must be open to free and fair ship transit.”

Bessent also said he met with Chinese central bank Governor Pan Gongsheng on Sunday, but offered few details about their conversation.

— Kevin Breuninger

Bessent is expected to ask his counterparts in virtually every G20 meeting if their countries will join the U.S. in its goal of cutting off Iran from the global economy, Treasury officials have said.

In an interview with CNBC’s Sara Eisen Monday morning, Bessent said he spoke with Chinese central bank Governor Pan Gongsheng on Sunday, and confirmed that he will be meeting with his Canadian counterpart in Asheville.

Bessent previously told the Associated Press that he would speak to his Chinese counterparts at the meeting, and that “all options are on the table” to respond to Beijing’s continued purchases of Iranian oil.

He also told the AP that the Trump administration plans to unveil sanctions on another bank this week as part of its plan to economically isolate Iran by targeting its financial “enablers.”

Bessent is also likely to sit down with officials from South Korea and Argentina, among other nations.

— Kevin Breuninger and Megan Cassella

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh expressed confidence in the U.S. economy during brief remarks Monday morning at the G20 conference.

“As I show up today, 100 days into my tenure, a comment that I made in Jackson Hole a day or two ago is that secular stagnation seems like a description of a past long ago. The new period is one of secular growth,” Warsh said, referring to his Friday presentation at the Fed’s annual symposium in Wyoming.

The central bank leader added that the current climate is “one of a global investment surge,” echoing a theme he has sounded repeatedly over the past several months of artificial intelligence spurring cash flows towards business growth.

— Jeff Cox

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent touted U.S. economic strength, insisting it’s possible to grow out of the escalating debt burden the nation faces.

“Our goal here today is to reiterate that our message of growth. The world is awash in debt post [global financial crisis], post Covid, and the only way for us to get out of this is to grow our way out of this,” Bessent told reporters on the opening day of the G20 summit. “I’m confident that a lot of the leaders are very receptive to this.”

The government faces a $40 trillion-debt load and the likelihood of a $2 trillion deficit for fiscal 2026.

Conscious of those challenges, Bessent said “we are left with a mess” from the Biden administration.

“I say sometimes that I feel like an emergency room doctor, and the economy is the patient, and the American people were backed over by the Biden Mack truck,” he said. “We have stabilized the patient, and now we’re in the healing portion, and real incomes are increasing.”

— Jeff Cox

Iran’s economy could collapse in as soon as a few weeks, Bessent predicted, while insisting that isn’t a prerequisite for a breakthrough with Tehran.

“We have the blockade, and we are going to continue exerting pressure, and we’ve had very good discussions here already,” Bessent said at a press gaggle when asked how long it could take for Iran’s economy to buckle.

“I think it could be within weeks or months,” he said, but added, “The economy doesn’t have to collapse … we just have to have the regime come to their senses.”

— Kevin Breuninger

Bessent thanked the European Union “for their very fulsome, fulsome support for Operation Economic Outcast” as he arrived at the G20 meeting.

“They made it known today in the strongest terms that they supported” the plan, which aims to strangle Iran’s economy by targeting its international “enablers” with secondary sanctions, Bessent said.

The European Commission, the executive body of the EU, said in a statement overnight that it “welcomes efforts at ensuring that Iran ceases its destabilising activities and engages in peace negotiations with good faith.”

The commission said it supports efforts to achieve that goal “through additional economic pressure, including through the US led Operation Economic Outcast.”

“The EU will continue to work closely with the United States and other G7 and international partners to maintain pressure on Iran and contribute to de-escalation and regional stability,” the statement said.

— Kevin Breuninger

Iran is taking the threat of strengthened U.S. sanctions “very seriously,” Bessent said.

Recent rhetorical and military aggression from Iran’s leaders shows “they’re in shock at the state of their economy,” the Treasury secretary told reporters before heading into G20 meetings.

“I would think that they are lashing out kinetically because they are losing economically,” he said.

— Kevin Breuninger

The Treasury Department blocked some reporters from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg from attending the meetings in Asheville, barring access from three of the nation’s largest and most influential newsrooms.

Treasury’s refusal to give the reporters credentials is the latest instance of the Trump administration interfering with press access. Last year, the Pentagon imposed a strict new press policy that saw nearly all news organizations leave the building rather than sign an agreement to abide by the policy seeking to limit what news organizations could publish. Some of the media outlets excluded from the G20 said the move is intended to evade public scrutiny.

Nearly 300 members of the media, including one Times reporter, will have high-level access to policymakers throughout the event, a Treasury spokesperson said in a statement.

“News coverage should be focused on informing and educating the American people, rather than prioritizing clicks, engagement, or sensationalism,” the spokesperson said.

— Garrett Downs

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh will be appearing in Asheville, fresh off this speech last week at the central bank’s Jackson Hole, Wyoming, symposium.

The Fed leader is expected to deliver welcoming remarks for several sessions, with no indication that he will comment on policy.

During last week’s speech, Warsh hinted higher interest rates could be necessary absent further progress on getting inflation back to the Fed’s 2% target.

— Jeff Cox