The News
Donald Trump said Thursday that the president should have a voice in setting interest rates, in what would mark a stark contrast from the US Federal Reserve’s long-standing independence.
“I feel that the president should have at least [a] say in there, yeah, I feel that strongly,” Trump said at a news conference. “In my case, I made a lot of money, I was very successful, and I think I have a better instinct than, in many cases, people that would be on the Federal Reserve or the chairman.”
Some Trump advisers have floated plans to grant the White House a greater control over the central bank, which critics say would be legally and financially unviable.
SIGNALS
Trump advisers draft radical central bank reforms
Trump’s allies have been quietly preparing proposals to limit the Fed’s independence, after the former president clashed repeatedly with the bank in his first term. The Republican nominee has appeared open to appointing a Fed chair who would agree to consult with the president, The Wall Street Journal reported. The proposals have alarmed traditional fiscal conservatives, with one former Trump official saying that the idea of Trump playing a role in determining interest rates was a “horrifying thought.” Analysts at investment bank Evercore said the plan would likely prove unworkable. “The market would react very badly to any effort to tame the Fed, and we think this would cause the administration to back off and focus on its policy priorities,” they said in a note to clients.
Trump could be on a collision course with the Fed in a second term
Trump has proposed a range of policies for a second term that economists warn could cause inflation to accelerate. Trump has floated ideas including a 10% tariff on all products imported from abroad, a 60% tariff on Chinese imports, and tax cuts on the wealthy and middle class. These policy moves would “put more pressure on the Fed to tamp down inflation,” columnist Jonathan Chait wrote in New York Magazine. A majority of economists polled by The Wall Street Journal believed that inflation would be higher under Trump than Biden, likely leading the Fed to increase interest rates to counter the upward pressure on prices.