The US Federal Reserve must be "completely non-political", its chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday, after President Donald Trump repeatedly lashed out at him for not cutting interest rates sooner. "We're trying to deliver macro stabil
AFP | Frankfurt
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The US Federal Reserve must be “completely non-political”, its chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday, after President Donald Trump repeatedly lashed out at him for not cutting interest rates sooner.
“We’re trying to deliver macro stability, financial stability, economic stability, for the benefit of all the people,” Powell told a gathering of top central bankers in Sintra, Portugal.
“If we’re going to do that successfully, we need to do it in a completely non-political way, which means we don’t take sides.”
The Fed has held its benchmark lending rate steady since its last reduction in December despite pressure from Trump.
On Tuesday, Powell repeated his message that the central bank was waiting for the impact of Trump’s tariffs before deciding on further rate cuts.
“As the US economy is in solid shape, we think that the prudent thing to do is to wait and learn more and see what those effects might be,” he said during a panel discussion at the forum organised by the European Central Bank (ECB).
