Trump calls for presidential influence over interest rates, Fed policy
Republican nominee Donald Trump said that the president should have some say over interest rates and monetary policy, a move that would go against the longstanding practice of the US Federal Reserve being independent of political actors.
“I think that, in my case, I made a lot of money. I was very successful,” Trump said at a press conference Thursday at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach. “And I think I have a better instinct than, in many cases, people that would be on the Federal Reserve or the chairman.”
Trump has frequently expressed frustration that the executive branch doesn’t have more sway over interest rates. On Thursday he criticized Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for being a “little bit too early and a little bit too late” in moving interest rates.
Powell has pledged not to let political pressure influence decision making at the Fed. Since the late 1970s, presidents have traditionally resisted the temptation to publicly criticize the US central bank over interest rates.
Powell and his colleagues have held their benchmark rate at a more than 20-year high since July 2023, in an effort to quell inflation. But as the labor market has weakened, and especially after the unemployment rate in July moved up to 4.3%, some economists have criticized officials for waiting too long to ease back on rates.
Fed policymakers are now widely expected to lower rates when they next meet in mid-September, after early voting has begun in some states. Trump has said he doesn’t believe the Fed should cut interest rates so close to the election. However, he has frequently said in campaign speeches he wants lower rates if he wins a second term.
Trump has waffled on what role he thinks the executive branch should have over interest rates. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek earlier this summer Trump said he would focus on lowering costs so that the Fed could then lower interest rates.
In a rally last week in Pennsylvania, Trump lumped borrowing cost cuts in with other policies that are more within the president’s purview.
“We will deliver regulation cuts, energy price cuts, interest rate cuts, and we will drive prices down, and we’ll drive them down very fast,” Trump said at a July 31 campaign event.
