Bessent Says He Divested From Soybean Farms After Ethics Office Warning [View all]

Source: New York Times

Dec. 7, 2025 Updated 1:30 p.m. ET


Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Sunday that he divested from his holdings of thousands of acres of North Dakota soybean farmland last week to comply with his federal ethics agreement. The move will separate Mr. Bessent from properties that posed potential conflicts of interest as he leads President Trump’s trade negotiations with China, including Beijing’s commitment to buying American soybeans.

The divestment took place nearly eight months after Mr. Bessent was originally supposed to shed the assets. Federal officials are required to sell assets and investments that they could influence through their work for the U.S. government. The Treasury secretary, who has referred to himself as a “soybean farmer,” drew criticism from ethics watchdogs earlier this year for being slow to sell the properties.

“I’m involved in the agriculture industry. I run a soybean farm,” Mr. Bessent said on the CBS program “Face the Nation,” before adding, “I actually just divested it this week as part of my ethics agreement, so I’m out of that business.”

The U.S. government’s ethics watchdog agency wrote a letter to the Senate Finance Committee in August alerting lawmakers that Mr. Bessent was not in compliance with his ethics agreement. Treasury Department ethics officials said that Mr. Bessent had not sold the land because the assets are “illiquid and are not readily marketable.” Mr. Bessent had pledged to divest by Dec. 15.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/07/business/bessent-divest-soybean-farms-ethics.html