Trump says he knows interest rates better than Fed chief Powell

President Donald Trump questioned Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s decision making on interest rates and said he planned 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 if he believed Fed officials would listen to him, Trump responded, “Yeah.”

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 US 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% 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 increased 3.2% 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.

Jerome Powell

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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% target.

Fed officials are set to meet next on January 28-29 in Washington.

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