He has “become a big star,” President Donald Trump said in Qatar Wednesday. “Every time he goes on television, everything goes up.”

Stocks have gone up since April, as the administration has postponed or rolled back punitive tariffs on imports. Bessent, a former hedge fund manager with an eye on the markets, is getting credit in many quarters for Trump’s policy pivot. He may also get the blame if things don’t work out as companies, consumers, and investors now expect. Being “the big star” has advantages, but it carries dangers, as well, given Trump’s mercurial nature and the economic stakes.

Bessent suddenly seems to be everywhere at once, doing meaningful work to advance the Trump agenda and America’s interests. He is leading sensitive tariff negotiations with China, and was at the table with Trump in the Middle East this past week as the president drummed up what the administration says is $2 trillion in new investments. Bessent is also expected to help Congress work through its tax debate this year.

So far, Bessent’s influence has been most evident in the turnaround on tariffs. The S&P 500 also mounted a turnaround, turning positive on May 13, the day after the U.S. trimmed tariffs on Chinese goods from 145% to 30%, plus some pre-existing tariffs.

Trump initially unveiled his tariff regime, designed to “level the playing field” in trade, on April 2, with a giant poster highlighting the aggressive levies Trump planned to impose on all of America’s trading partners.

“That was a pretty shocking poster,” said Jens Nordvig, founder of market-data firm Exante Data, at a recent meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations. “There has now been a realization that that poster was a mistake, and the poster is effectively canceled.”

Its dismissal is a development that he and many others attribute to Bessent’s positive influence on the president.

Still, that influence has its limits. “Now I think we have a more analytical process but obviously, Scott Bessent is not the president. He isn’t the Congress. He isn’t the Senate,” said Nordvig.

Whether the markets can continue to shrug off tariffs isn’t assured. The poster may be gone, but 10% tariffs on imports from virtually every country in the world remain, with tariffs on China rising to 55% on some goods.

“I don’t know if the stock market heard that news and is aware that tariffs are higher than people planned a few months ago,” said Karen Karniol-Tambour, co-chief investment officer at hedge fund Bridgewater, also at the Council on Foreign Relations meeting

Markets aren’t pricing a growth slowdown, she said.

New global tariffs of any amount imply economic pain at home. Walmart CEO Doug McMillon addressed the elephant in the room on Thursday in an earnings call, saying, “Even at the reduced levels, the higher tariffs will result in higher prices.”

Global asset manager Allianz expects inflation as measured by the consumer price index to hit 3.5% this summer, up from an April reading of 2.3%. Inflation isn’t heading in the right direction for a nation that spent last year fuming about the price of eggs. And it isn’t what the Federal Reserve wants to see as it contemplates lowering interest rates.

Some in the market see the tariff turmoil and likely spike in inflation as a failure by Bessent to fully check the president’s instincts.

“Steven Mnuchin and Gary Cohn were willing to put their bodies on the line. Scott Bessent isn’t willing to do that,” a prominent financial-industry chief executive said, comparing the current Treasury secretary to, respectively, his predecessor in Trump’s first term and the former director of the National Economic Council.

The administration’s view is that the economy was in dire shape coming into Trump’s new term, and would soon have had a heart attack, barring Trump’s interventions. The remedy? A combination of benefits from trade, deregulation, and tax relief that will soon kick in, Bessent wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion column earlier this month.

“The American people should expect to hear the engine humming during the second half of 2025,” Bessent wrote.

If equity investors now hold that view, the bond market isn’t so sure. The term premium crept has higher in recent weeks, reflecting the rising reward traders want for holding long-term debt in an uncertain economy.

On Friday, Moody’s downgraded U.S. credit, making it the last of the three big ratings firms to take away the nation’s pristine Aaa rating. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose on the news to nearly 4.5%, marking its third continuous week of increases.

The rising yield reflects an improving economic outlook now that tariffs are less of an issue as well as concerns that Washington’s plans to rewrite tax law this summer could add trillions of dollars more in deficit spending. The Treasury Department would need to issue more debt while demand for it is low, potentially lifting yields.

“Ultimately, the market is going to look through” the debt downgrade, said Joseph LaVorgna, managing director and chief economist at SMBC Nikko Securities and a former economic adviser to Trump.

“The market has been a bunch of nervous Nellies,” LaVorgna said. “Once people realize the world isn’t coming to an end again, as they were thinking the past few weeks, you can see some premium come down,” he said.

And that isn’t just because Bessent has been having a few good weeks. “In fairness to Secretary Bessent, he’s had several good decades,” LaVorgna said. “I think he knows what he’s doing, and the markets respect and understand that.”

Whether Trump and Bessent knew what they were doing with tariffs all along will be for historians to debate. But it is clear that the administration has learned that it can only push the economy only so far, so fast. If Trump and his team can continue to manage the political agenda with an ear to what the markets are telling them, then fans of Bessonomics may well be vindicated.

And if they can’t, the “big star” may get the blame.

Write to Matt Peterson at matt.peterson@dowjones.com