United States Treasury Secretary Scott Besent has formally hired David Zavos, Senior Economist on Wall Street, as a Treasury Advisor. This appointment was made public by a statement by Becent on Monday this week, which was first obtained by the financial and economic media. Zvolos, a former author of the Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC), served as a leading market strategist at the Jeffrey Investment Bank for over 15 years, covering the Federal Reserve policy and financial market dynamics for a long time.
Zvolos will join the Ministry of Finance in an advisory capacity to advise in a wide range of areas and are expected to arrive immediately. As this position does not require a Senate confirmation process, the appointment process is relatively rapid and does not require a Senate hearing and voting session.
The policy position of Zvolos is highly consistent with the recent financial operations of Vicente. He publicly supported Becent ' s decision to increase the buy-back of long-term national debt and called on the Fed to lower interest rates. Against the backdrop of increased volatility in the bond market and continued rise in returns, the appointment was seen as an important initiative by Becent to supplement the expertise of the Ministry of Finance.
Since the start of the United States-Israel military campaign against Iran in February of this year, the cumulative return on United States Treasury debt has risen by about 100 basis points over a decade, surpassing 5 per cent for the first time since last week 2007. The ten-year rate of return on national debt directly affects long-term borrowing costs, including mortgage rates - For the first time in more than a year, mortgage interest rates have exceeded 7 per cent. On September 10, Besent led a buy-back exercise of over $5 billion for 10 years and 20 issues of national debt, calling the buy-back a "success" exercise at the House of Representatives Financial Services Commission hearing on September 15, stating that "there is a counter-factor situation, that is, what would happen if it were not done."
The appointment took place against the backdrop of frequent changes in senior staff of the Ministry of Finance. As of mid-August, seven of the appointments confirmed by the 16 Senates of the Ministry of Finance had reportedly been vacant. Since becoming Minister of Finance in January 2025, Becent has replaced three White House Chefs. Former Wall Street economist Joseph Lavogna also served as a similar adviser, but left in March this year. The addition of Zvolos would, to some extent, fill the gaps in the intellectual team.
Becent is currently multi-hatted. Since 28 January 2025, he has served as Minister of Finance for the 79th term, with an annual salary of $250,000,600 (as of January 2024) and is the highest public homosexual government official in the history of the United States and the first confirmed member of the Senate of the Republican Government. He also served as Acting Director of the United States Internal Revenue Service (8 August 2025 to 6 March 2026), after briefly serving as Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (3 February to 7 February 2025). In the order of succession, the Minister of Finance ranks fifth in the order of succession to the President, after the Secretary of State and before the Minister of Defence.
In terms of foreign policy, Becent is leading many actions by the Ministry of Finance to economically isolate Iran through sanctions. He publicly claimed that Iran would be "free of goods" within two weeks and that the oil lifeline was drying up. The Office of Overseas Assets Control of the Ministry of Finance has also recently designated nine Hizbullah affiliates, including individuals embedded within the Government of Lebanon seeking to influence key decision-making, and has imposed sanctions on more than 10 individuals and entities associated with the Sinaloa drug syndicate. The Deputy Foreign Minister of Iran, for his part, publicly rejected the American approach, stating that "the world is not the backyard of the United States".
With regard to relations between China and the United States, on 20 September in New York, Bécente met with a member of the Central Political Bureau of the Communist Party and Deputy Prime Minister of the State Council at the Ho Li summit, which focused on the issues of artificial intelligence security and trade. Becent indicated that the United States had proposed a new AI security briefing mechanism and a framework for US-China AI dialogue, and planned to meet again in China in two months. He had also previously taken up the position of director of AI and had discussions with Trump, but Trump had subsequently made it clear that Becent would not be the "super smart" director.
The arrival of Zvolos will provide additional analytical support to the Treasury on issues such as bond yield management, Fed policy coordination and AI-related capital expenditure. The market can expect the impact of its policies to be felt more quickly, as it can assume its functions without Senate confirmation.
Market participants should focus on the following directions: The first is the scale and tempo of the Treasury’s follow-on bond buy-back operation, which will have a direct impact on long-term interest-rate trends; the second is the Federal Reserve’s policy orientation on inflation prospects, which was previously publicly urged by Becent to keep “open mind”; the third is a concrete landing schedule for the US-China-Ai dialogue mechanism; and the fourth is the pace of advancing economic sanctions against Iran and their ripple effect on global energy markets. The staffing and policy direction of the Ministry of Finance, in particular the substantive role of Zvolos in the advisory role, will be a central observation point for the coming period.