Jerome Powell wanted to be forgotten. He failed. On Wednesday, January 29, US President Donald Trump took the chair of the US Federal Reserve to task after the Monetary Policy Committee meeting at the end of which the Fed left its key rates unchanged. This marks the end of a downward cycle that has seen interest fall by one point since September 2024. Rates are now in a range between 4.25% and 4.5%. "We don't need to be in a hurry to adjust our policy stance," Powell explained.

During a speech broadcast at the Davos Forum in Switzerland on January 23, Trump declared that he would demand that interest rates fall "immediately." The Fed did not follow him. A mute Powell refused to answer political questions on Wednesday. All he did was concede that he had "had no contact" with Donald Trump.

So Trump went head-to-head with Powell via his Truth Social network, accusing the Fed of causing prices to rise from 2020 onwards. "Because Jay Powell and the Fed failed to stop the problem they created with Inflation, I will do it by unleashing American Energy production, slashing Regulation, rebalancing International Trade, and reigniting American Manufacturing," he wrote. He said the Fed has done a "terrible job" with banking regulation. "If the Fed had spent less time on DEI, gender ideology, 'green' energy, and fake climate change, Inflation would never have been a problem. Instead, we suffered from the worst Inflation in the History of our Country!"

You have 63.11% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.