Both wearing hard hats, US President Donald Trump and head of the US central bank Jerome Powell exchanged frosty words on July 24 at the construction site of the Federal Reserve's headquarters in Washington. Trump exaggerated the numbers regarding the project's cost overruns, and Powell corrected him in front of the press. The two men openly dislike each other, and that was on full display during the visit, which served more as a pretext for Trump to pressure Powell to resign or to fire him.

True to his background as a real estate developer, Trump wants to lower interest rates to boost growth. His policies on tariffs and immigration have slowed the economy, and he has demanded that Powell offset those effects. Powell, who fears a resurgence of inflation due to trade barriers and budget deficits, refused.

Since the billionaire appointed him to lead the Fed in 2018, during his first presidential term, this moderate Republican achieved a remarkable feat: delivering a soft landing for the economy. But Trump has paid little attention to that. He has criticized Powell for raising rates too late in response to what he believed was temporary inflation under Democrat Joe Biden and for now being too slow to cut them, even as the labor market is rapidly deteriorating. Regardless of the criticism, Trump has targeted a pillar of the US economy: the independence of the Fed.

You have 89.41% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.