US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he was “not thrilled” with the US Federal Reserve under Chairman Jerome Powell for raising interest rates and said the US central bank should do more to help him to boost the economy.
In the middle of international trade disputes, Trump in an interview also accused China and Europe of manipulating their respective currencies.
US presidents have rarely criticized the Fed in the past few decades because its independence has been seen as important for economic stability, but Trump has departed from the practice.
The US president last month spooked investors when he criticized the US central bank’s over tightening monetary policy.
On Monday, he said the Fed should be more accommodating on interest rates.
“I’m not thrilled with his raising of interest rates, no. I’m not thrilled,” Trump said, referring to Powell.
Trump last year nominated Powell to replace former Fed chair Janet Yellen.
Trump, who criticized the Fed when he was a candidate, said that other countries benefited from their central banks’ moves during tough trade talks, but that the US was not getting support from the Fed.
“We’re negotiating very powerfully and strongly with other nations. We’re going to win, but during this period of time I should be given some help by the Fed. The other countries are accommodated,” Trump said.
The Fed has raised interest rates twice this year and is expected to do so again next month with consumer price inflation rising to 2.9 percent last month, its highest level in six years, and unemployment at 3.9 percent, the lowest level in about 20 years.
After leaving its policy interest rates at historic lows for about six years after the 2008 global financial crisis, the Fed began slowly raising rates again in late 2015.
Trump said that China was manipulating its currency to make up for having to pay tariffs on imports imposed by Washington.
“I think China’s manipulating their currency, absolutely. And I think the euro is being manipulated also,” Trump said.
“What they’re doing is making up for the fact that they’re now paying ... hundreds of millions of dollars and in some cases billions of dollars into the United States Treasury. And so they’re being accommodated and I’m not. And I’ll still win,” he said.
Trump has frequently accused China of manipulating its currency, but his administration has so far declined to name China formally as a currency manipulator in a semi-annual report from the US Department of the Treasury.
The US dollar has this year strengthened by 5.35 percent against the yuan, reversing most of its large drop against the Chinese currency last year.
Trump has made reducing US trade deficits a priority, and the combination of rising interest rates and a strengthening US dollar pose risks for export growth.
Powell last month said in an interview that the Fed has a “long tradition” of independence from political concerns, and that no one in the Trump administration had said anything to him that gave him concerns on that front.
“We’re going to do our business in a way that’s strictly non-political, without taking political issues into consideration, and that carries out the mandate Congress has given us,” he said.
Asked if he believed in the Fed’s independence, Trump said: “I believe in the Fed doing what’s good for the country.”
Powell took over as Fed chief earlier this year.
“Am I happy with my choice?” Trump said about Powell. “I’ll let you know in seven years.”
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