The administration keeps arguing that the Federal Reserve is fighting the last war: Inflation is under control and it’s past time to cut interest rates. The data pretty clearly are not cooperating: Even when inflation comes in “below expectations,” it remains higher than the Fed’s target, and in recent months, core PCE inflation has been accelerating.

But let’s say the administration were characterizing the numbers accurately: The data show that inflation is at a tolerable level. How would that help the administration’s argument? It would mean that the Fed is succeeding at keeping inflation under control — and meanwhile, according to the administration itself, economic growth is robust. The (allegedly) tolerably low inflation rate was produced in important part by the Fed’s refusal to cut interest rates as fast as President Trump wants. How would that be an indictment of Jerome Powell?

This is another way in which the administration’s arguments against Fed policy make no sense.

Trump and his allies would make a more coherent argument if they said that the Fed’s inflation target is too confining: that 3 or 4 percent inflation would be fine. But this move — associated in the past with progressives — would be a dangerous one. Economically: It would raise inflation expectations and making rate cuts harder. And politically: It would mean taking direct ownership of high inflation. So far, though, Trump isn’t saying we need higher inflation.