He Helped ‘Break’ the Bank of England. Now He May Run the U.S. Treasury.

Three decades before he was tapped to lead the Treasury Department, Scott Bessent was asked to help break another country’s financial system.

Then 29 years old, Mr. Bessent, working for the financier George Soros, helped “break” the Bank of England with crushing trades against the British pound. He was on a small team at Mr. Soros’s investment firm that, in 1992, amassed a $10 billion bet that the pound was overvalued.