Trump asks the Fed to turn the US economy into a "spaceship"

President Donald Trump on Friday urged the Federal Reserve to take drastic action to support the US economy, about an hour after new data revealed a high number of jobs and healthy wage growth.

"Personally, I think the Fed should lower rates," Trump told reporters outside the White House. "I think they really slowed us down."

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He also said that the central bank should revive its bond buying program called "quantitative easing," a measure taken by the Fed following the 2008 financial crisis to end the loonie. collapse of the real estate market and revive the economy.

Trump is stepping up his long battle against the Fed, which he has accused of being the "only problem" facing the economy. For months, he has urged President Jerome Powell to put an end to the central bank's campaign to raise interest rates, but now asks the Fed to spur growth. He also announced his intention to appoint two Fed governors who support rate cuts.

Since the end of 2017, the Fed has reduced its holdings of bonds. It also raised interest rates four times last year to prevent prices from rising too quickly and to divert the economy from cheap debt that could eventually begin to threaten the stability of the financial system. This rate hike campaign is now suspended and the central bank is monitoring the slowdown in growth abroad.

"There is no inflation," Trump said. "I would say that in terms of quantitative tightening, it should actually act as a quantitative easing. … you would see a rocket.

"Even so, we are doing very well," he added.

US employers added 196,000 strong jobs in March, a sign that the low February report of 33,000 net jobs was an exception. Wage growth slowed to 3.2% last month from 3.4% in February, the fastest pace of the last decade.

This summer, the current economic expansion will become the longest in US history. The economy grew 2.9% in 2018.

Trump's sentiments echo the call of his economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, who said last week that the Fed should "immediately" cut interest rates by half a point of percentage, a view shared by Stephen Moore, that the president has committed to appoint to bank.