What did Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent mean when he said tariffs were "the dog that didn't bark"?

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On July 3, 2025, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC that "what we've seen so far is that tariffs haven't hurt. The dog that didn't bark was that tariffs were going to hurt the economy, were going to hurt the markets." Bessent was using Sherlock Holmes's reference to the dog that didn't bark in the night—something expected didn't happen. He meant that the anticipated economic damage and market turmoil from Trump's tariffs failed to materialize. Market disruption and inflation that critics predicted didn't occur, allowing Bessent to claim that tariffs were economically benign.

What did Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent mean when he said tariffs were "the dog that didn't bark"?

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