\n<\/p>\n
Donald Trump has privately indicated he is on the verge of firing the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, rattling Wall Street and renewing questions over the US central bank\u2019s independence.<\/p>\n
The US president insisted on Wednesday that it was \u201chighly unlikely\u201d he would dismiss the Fed chair, after reports he had suggested he would and shown a draft letter dismissing Powell to political allies.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t rule out anything, but I think it\u2019s highly unlikely. Unless he has to leave for fraud,\u201d said Trump. The president has recently criticized Powell for a $2.5bn renovation of the Fed\u2019s buildings. \u201cI mean it\u2019s possible there\u2019s fraud involved,\u201d said Trump.<\/p>\n
Powell has reportedly asked the central bank\u2019s inspector general to review the renovation.<\/p>\n
Trump has repeatedly and publicly demanded the Fed cut interest rates to spur economic growth. Powell has so far declined, noting that Trump\u2019s controversial rollout of tariffs has clouded the outlook for inflation.<\/p>\n
In an interview with the Real America\u2019s Voice network aired on Wednesday, Trump said he would love for Powell to resign but acknowledged that many have said it would disrupt the markets if the president were to remove him, Reuters reported. People present at the meeting with Trump expressed approval for Powell\u2019s firing, CBS News reported. The president indicated he would \u201clikely\u201d do so soon, an unnamed White House official told the CNBC financial news network.<\/p>\n Trump has drafted a letter dismissing the Fed chair, according to the New York Times, which reported that he had shown this to congressional Republicans.<\/p>\n At a White House press event, however, Trump poured cold water on speculation that he would try to fire Powell imminently. \u201cWe\u2019re not planning on doing it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The benchmark S&P 500 fell sharply into the red after the initial reports, before recovering after Trump\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n Price growth rose in the US last month, as the impact of Trump\u2019s trade policy appeared to boost inflation. The president responded by again calling on the Fed to cut rates, despite policymakers so far holding off primarily due to the threat of a resurgence in inflation.<\/p>\n While the president has urged Powell to resign, and attacked him regularly on social media, he does not have the power to fire him over monetary policy. The supreme court signaled in May that it viewed the Fed as legally protected.<\/p>\n Trump initially nominated Powell to serve as Fed chair during his first term. Joe Biden then tapped him to stay on for another four years, until May 2026. Powell has repeatedly stated that he plans to do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Donald Trump has privately indicated he is on the verge of firing the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, rattling Wall Street and renewing questions over the US central bank\u2019s independence. The US president insisted on Wednesday that it was \u201chighly unlikely\u201d he would dismiss the Fed chair, after reports he had suggested he would and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[2431,4437,319,77,4438,4439,4436,517,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-11170","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-chair","9":"tag-fed","10":"tag-federal","11":"tag-fire","12":"tag-jerome","13":"tag-powell","14":"tag-privately","15":"tag-reserve","16":"tag-trump"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/strong><\/p>\n