Bessent discloses his divestiture from soybean farm to comply with ethics agreement

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he has divested his interest in a soybean farm as part of his ethics agreement when he joined the administration.

It is reported that Bessent owned 25 million US dollars of soybean and corn farm in the state of North Dakota, including thousands of acres of land that earned him rental income as much as 1 million dollars a year.

In August, the US Office of Government Ethics wrote a letter to the Senate Finance Committee alerting lawmakers that the treasury chief was too slow to sell the properties.

Bessent told a CBS program on Sunday that he actually divested his holdings from the farm last week and was "out of that business," while discussing the trade situation for farmers.

He had pledged to divest his Key Square Group hedge fund among other assets to comply with certain terms of the federal ethics agreement aimed at avoiding potential conflict of interest.