Jerome Powell and Donald Trump in 2017. Photographer: Olivier Douliery/Bloomberg.
President Donald Trump questioned Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s decision-making on interest rates and said he plans to speak to the central bank chief “at the right time.”
“I think I know interest rates much better than they do, and I think I know it certainly much better than the one who’s primarily in charge of making that decision,” Trump said, in an apparent reference to Powell, while speaking to reporters from the Oval Office Thursday. “If I disagree, I will let it be known.” Asked whether he believes Fed officials would listen to him, Trump responded, “Yeah.”
Recommended For You
Trump’s comments came hours after he delivered a video address to the world’s elite at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he vowed to pressure Saudi Arabia to lower oil prices and called for an immediate drop in interest rates—moves he said would help ease prices for U.S. consumers and help bolster the nation’s economy.
“When oil prices come down, everything’s going to be cheaper for the American people,” Trump told reporters. “When the energy comes down, that’s going to knock out a lot of the inflation. That’s going to automatically bring the interest rates down.”
A jump in energy costs accounted for more than 40 percent of the increase in overall inflation in December, but the Fed must contend with price pressures in other parts of the economy as well. Excluding food and energy, the consumer price index (CPI) increased 3.2 percent last month from a year earlier.
While presidents have traditionally refrained from directly commenting on the central bank’s policymaking, Trump told Bloomberg News during the campaign that he should be able to tell Powell how he thinks interest rates should change. Powell, who faced frequent barbs from Trump during the president’s first term, has said the central bank will make decisions on rates based on what’s best for the economy and independent of political considerations or outside pressure.
After cutting rates three times in late 2024, Fed policymakers are expected to hold rates steady until they see inflation make more downward progress toward their 2 percent target. Fed officials are set to meet next on January 28 and 29 in Washington.
————————————————————
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
