U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the administration plans to tighten rules around international money transfers by requiring people who initiate a wire to indicate whether they receive public assistance — and he suggested that those on public aid would be barred from sending wires out of the country.
Speaking on the podcast ‘Human Events with Jack Posobiec,’ Bessent said: “For individuals who want to wire money out of the country, they’re gonna have to tick a box whether they are or are not on public assistance. And then we’re going to start pushing over the coming days and weeks that if you are on public assistance, you cannot wire money out of the country.”
He argued the change is aimed at preventing misuse of taxpayer support and stopping money from reaching bad actors abroad. Bessent added: “Because if you are wiring money out of the country and you’re on public assistance, it means one of two things: either you’re getting too much assistance that you don’t need for yourself and your family… we do not intend to support people in Mogadishu or to support terrorist organizations. Or the second thing it could mean is you’ve stolen the money…”
He also pointed to Minnesota as an example, saying theft is “what we’re seeing prevailed here in Minnesota.”
A related political debate has intensified in Minnesota in recent months, with Democratic Gov. Tim Walz facing criticism over fraud cases tied to the state’s social services system, including alleged schemes involving daycare centers.
What the proposal would actually control
The kind of federal control Bessent described would not directly move or “wire” benefit programs themselves. For example, SNAP benefits are issued through EBT cards and cannot be transferred like cash through a wire. Instead, the proposal would effectively regulate a person’s ability to send their own money abroad if they also receive public assistance.
The underlying logic presented by Bessent is that if someone can afford to send money out of the country, then the level of assistance they receive is excessive — because, in this view, public aid should not leave recipients with any financial “surplus” beyond immediate domestic needs.
Critics raise “capital controls” and fairness concerns
The comments drew sharp reactions online. Catherine Rampell, economics editor at The Bulwark, responded by asking: “we’re doing capital controls now?” Wonkette writer Marcie Jones replied, “But there is a solution, one can send the money through an anonymous crypto wallet.” Jones noted that crypto regulation has been reduced during Trump’s second term, even as international criminal networks have been linked to cryptocurrency use.
Others objected to the idea on civil-liberties grounds, calling it surveillance and warning it could expand beyond low-income groups. One commenter wrote: “Y’all do realize this isn’t about fraud it’s about surveillance, right? First they test it on people you’re conditioned to hate. Then they normalize it. Then they roll the exact same tracking onto everyone else. Funny how there’s endless monitoring for poor people wiring money…but zero appetite to scrutinize corporations siphoning billions in taxpayer dollars overseas.”
Another questioned whether similar scrutiny would apply to businesses, replying: “Does the same apply to corporate welfare recipients?”
