What Trump Can (And Can’t) Do to Steer Fed Policy: QuickTake

President Donald Trump remains unhappy that the U.S. Federal Reserve under the chairman he chose, Jerome Powell, raised interest rates during the first part of his presidency and more recently hasn’t dramatically lowered them. But while the president can authorize military operations, issue rules by executive order, convene Congress and pardon criminals, he can’t do much about the Fed. That doesn’t mean Trump isn’t trying.

In tweets, interviews and off-the-cuff remarks throughout 2019 that broke with recent precedent among occupants of the White House, Trump accused the Fed of “unnecessary and destructive actions.” The Fed raised the benchmark federal funds rate nine times starting in 2015, the last seven during Trump’s presidency, reasoning that inflation had become a bigger threat than unemployment. Had the Fed not “mistakenly raised interest rates,” Trump tweeted in March 2019, U.S. gross domestic product and stock prices “would have both been much higher.” Since August, the Fed has lowered rates three times, but Trump says even that’s not a sufficient boost to growth. The Fed should “get our interest rates down to ZERO, or less,” Trump said in a September 2019 tweet.