JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon is increasingly concerned that the US government’s surging debt is going to cause problems for the bond market, prompting some pushback from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Last Friday, the boss of the biggest US bank predicted a “crack” in that market while speaking at the Reagan National Economic Forum in Simi Valley, Calif.
“It is going to happen. And I tell this to my regulators, some of you who are in this room, I’m telling you it’s going to happen, and you’re going to panic.”
This past weekend, Bessent dismissed that prediction, saying Dimon has made it before.
“I’ve known Jamie a long time and for his entire career he’s made predictions like this. Fortunately, none of them have come true. That’s why he’s a banker, a great banker. He tries to look around the corner,” Bessent said in an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Dimon emerged in 2025 as an influential voice when it comes to the policies of the new Trump administration — and as someone who apparently has President Trump’s ear.
The president even acknowledged listening to Dimon just hours before he announced a 90-day pause of his “Liberation Day” tariffs on April 9.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon visits “Mornings With Maria” with Maria Bartiromo at Fox Business Network Studios on April 9. (Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images) ·Noam Galai via Getty Images
Dimon repeated his warnings about the bond market in an interview with Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo that aired Monday, saying the surging US national debt may create a “tough time” for that market as spreads widen.
“If people decide that the US dollar isn’t the place to be, you could see credit spreads gap out; that would be quite a problem,” Dimon said.
“It hurts the people raising money. That includes small businesses, that includes loans to small businesses, includes high-yield debt, includes leveraged lending, includes real estate loans. That’s why you should worry about volatility in the bond market.”
Long-term Treasury yields have been climbing in recent weeks, driven by growing concerns over the trajectory of US debt as President Trump’s proposed tax legislation advances to the Senate after clearing the House.
Read more: What is the 10-year Treasury note, and how does it affect your finances?
New concerns emerged last week after a Manhattan-based trade court struck down a wide swath of Trump’s tariffs, citing legal issues with how they were implemented.
Although a federal appeals court paused that decision on Thursday, temporarily allowing the tariffs to remain in place, the legal back-and-forth has added to market uncertainty.
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Treasury yields initially spiked on Monday, with the 10-year (^TNX) climbing to 4.46% while the 30-year (^TYX) reached 4.99% by the end of the day. They briefly retreated on Tuesday, only to return to Monday levels, a threshold breached only a handful of times since 2007.
Bessent told CBS this past weekend that the administration’s work on getting down the deficit is underway.
“The deficit this year is going to be lower than the deficit last year, and in two years it will be lower again,” he said. “We are going to bring the deficit down slowly. We didn’t get here in one year, and this has been a long process.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at the White House on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) ·ASSOCIATED PRESS
The administration intends to “leave the country in great shape in 2028,” he added.
One area that would cushion a bond market tantrum that the Trump administration has clearly telegraphed is giving JPMorgan and other big banks a larger role as US Treasury holders, and possibly dealers.
Bessent has repeatedly said he wants to adjust a bank capital requirement known as the supplemental leverage ratio (SLR) to make it easier for lenders in order to inject more liquidity into the market for US government debt.
Dimon agrees that amending the SLR would help the market during times of stress, though he noted that he also wants to see reforms across lots of capital requirements.
“The reason to change some of these things is so banks — the big market makers could intermediate more in the markets,” Dimon told analysts in April.
“If they do, spreads will come in, there’ll be more active traders,” Dimon said. “If they don’t, the Fed will have to intermediate, which I think is just a bad policy idea that every time there’s a kerfuffle in the markets, the Fed has to come in and intermediate.”
To prevent a bond market crack, Dimon said in the Fox News interview that aired Monday, “the real focus should be [economic] growth.”
He also named several places for improvement from regulatory, permitting, and education reforms to broader government efficiency efforts meant to stamp out waste and fraud in Medicare and Medicaid.
Dimon gave Fox an update about his plans to leave the bank eventually, saying that his retirement is still “several years away” but that “it’s up to God and the board,” the 69-year-old CEO said. “I love what I do.”
On Tuesday, the bank announced in a memo that it was giving more responsibility to one of Dimon’s potential successors, consumer bank boss Marianne Lake.
Lake will also oversee strategic growth and the overseas consumer bank following Sanoke Viswanathan’s departure to become CEO of data provider FactSet.
David Hollerith is a senior reporter for Yahoo Finance covering banking, crypto, and other areas in finance.
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