The Treasury also took the unusual step of inviting private-sector luminaries to participate in some of the G20 sessions on promoting stronger growth, reflecting the Trump administration's view that growth was best served by deregulation, producing more energy and fostering innovation.
Bessent told one of the sessions that global growth had underperformed its potential for too long and that causes can no longer include "policy failures of our own making."
He said the U.S. Treasury had identified several impediments to growth that G20 countries needed to work on, including "excessive regulatory and administrative burdens, poorly designed financial incentives and tax systems, insufficient public and private investment, internal market fragmentation, and gaps in workforce skills and mobility."
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh, attending his first international economic policy meeting since taking office in May, said he was looking forward to learning more about growth prospects among member economies. He said an era of "secular stagnation" marked by a lack of innovation looked to be over amid an AI investment boom.
"If I were to try to characterize this moment, it would be one of a global investment surge," he said, adding that it had reversed the "global savings glut", which in the past had kept capital idle due to a shortage of investment opportunities.
Bessent also highlighted strong U.S. growth, which has benefited from investments in AI infrastructure that have also helped to push up U.S. Treasury debt yields by soaking up savings that had previously held U.S. borrowing costs down by flowing into Treasuries.
Ahead of the G20 talks, Bessent played down mounting market scrutiny of U.S. debt levels, arguing the United States was in a stronger position than many advanced economies because it continues to grow, even while running large budget deficits.
"First of all, I'm not sure where the bond market turmoil is," he told Reuters in an interview on Sunday. "What's important, too, is that we are growing."
On Tuesday, the U.S. will focus on reducing global trade imbalances, and Bessent said he would urge G20 members to re-examine their terms of trade with China to pressure Beijing to rebalance its economy away from exports and toward domestic consumption.
"The world cannot have a China with a $1.2 trillion trade surplus," Bessent said in the Reuters interview. "In China, the economy is quite weak, and they are trying to export their way out of it, and they need to rebalance their economy."
Economists say the U.S. must also reduce its growing fiscal deficits as part of this rebalancing effort.
"We need a more balanced world," French Finance Minister Roland Lescure said. "We know that every big zone, whether China, the U.S. and Europe, has got their own homework to do."
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