Jerome Powell: I will not leave if Trump asks me to leave

by



[ad_1]

"Of course, I would not do that," said Powell, named by Trump.

"I can not hear you," said Waters in response to which the audience room burst out laughing.

"The answer would be," No, "said Powell.

Waters pressed further, asking, "Do you believe the president does not have authority?"

He replied, "What I have said is that the law gives me a four-year term and I have every intention of serving it."

Trump has openly called for lower interest rates, saying the Fed had dampened the US economy with rising interest rates last year. These measures have been taken to combat inflation and give policy makers a better cushion in the event of a recession, standard measures given the continuing strength of the US labor market.

Powell however said on Wednesday that a rate cut was imminent due to the global economic crisis, partly related to Trump's trade wars – a reversal of his previous plan to increase rates regularly this year, in line with demands of Trump.

"It seems that the uncertainties surrounding trade tensions and worries about the strength of the global economy continue to weigh on the US economic outlook," Powell said in his prepared remarks.

The president referred to the economy at the start of his 2020 campaign and believes that any effort to curb growth could hurt his own popularity. Last winter, as the stock market collapsed in the midst of a series of tariff threats against China and what would become a record federal shutdown, Trump asked his advisors to He could dismiss Powell.

More recently, Trump has explicitly refused to rule out the possibility of demoting Powell.

"I have the right to demote him, I have the right to send him back," he said in an interview with Fox Business in June.

Trump appointed Powell, an investment banker, in late 2017 to succeed Janet Yellen as chairman of the Fed, the world's most powerful central bank.

[ad_2]

Source link