US President Donald Trump will soon fill two key posts amid growing worry over the erosion of previously independent American economic institutions.
The White House is likely to name a new, senior Federal Reserve official and a top labor-market statistician in the coming days: Trump has long pressured the central bank’s chief, and last week fired the official in charge of employment data after a surprisingly poor jobs-market reading.
“Potential politicization of the Fed has been much discussed… but the risk of politicizing the data collection process should not be overlooked,” JPMorgan’s chief US economist wrote in a note. “To borrow from the soft-landing analogy, having a flawed instrument panel can be just as dangerous as having an obediently partisan pilot.”