Fed ignores Trump's Request of Slowing Rate Hike

2018-08-29

In the early morning of the 26th Beijing time, Fed officials basically ignored the pressure that US President Trump brought to the Fed at the annual meeting of Jackson Hole. Trump continued to exert pressure on the Fed last week to slow down or stop raising interest rates gradually.

Some policy makers have bluntly stated that their interest rate decisions will not be affected. Dallas Fed President Kaplan pointed out in an interview that the work of the Central Bank and my job is to make monetary policy decisions without considering political factors or political influence.

Earlier this month, Trump complained to Republican donors at a fund raising event in Hampton that he thought that his nominated Jerome Powell would be a Fed chairman who supported low interest rates, however he is not. Off the court, some participants said that the Fed has no choice but to ignore the president. It has been suggested that Fed officials should raise interest rates in a more positive way to prove their independence, a statement that has been severely rejected, just as Powell should not publicly warn the president not to comment further on interest rates.

The analysis believes that even with the pressure from Trump, the Fed is hard to deviate from its established rate hike path. “I am convinced that the Fed will not deviate from its very responsible strategy,” JPMorgan Champion International Chairman Jacob Frankel said in an interview. “In politics, slamming the Fed’s short-term goals may be politically attractive. But actually On, it won't change anything."