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Trump warns Federal Reserve against interest rate hike
WASHINGTON, Dec 18, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – President Donald Trump on Tuesday
urged the Federal Reserve, the US central bank, to not make “another mistake”
by raising interest rates.
“I hope the people over at the Fed will read today’s Wall Street Journal
Editorial before they make yet another mistake,” he tweeted. “Also, don’t let
the market become any more illiquid than it already is. Stop with the 50 B’s.
Feel the market, don’t just go by meaningless numbers. Good luck!”
The Journal editorial called for a pause in rising interest rates, as the
Fed on Tuesday opens its final two-day policy meeting of 2018 at which it is
widely expected to raise the key rate for the fourth time this year, working
to get ahead of expected gains in inflation.
Trump has repeatedly broken with the norm respected by US presidents in
recent decades to refrain from criticizing the Fed, hammering the central
bank this year over its move away from the zero interest rate policy
implemented during the global financial crisis.
Trump has called the central bank “crazy,” “out of control” and a greater
economic threat than China, which the president blames for hollowing out
American industry through unfair trade.
But analysts and former Fed members say Trump’s unprecedented vitriol
could cause the central bank to try to prove its independence by raising
rates even if policymakers might otherwise have held off.
On Monday, in a tweet sent one hour before stock markets were due to open,
Trump wrote: “It is incredible that with a very strong dollar and virtually
no inflation, the outside world blowing up around us, Paris is burning and
China way down, the Fed is even considering yet another interest rate hike.”
BSS/AFP/FI/ 1910 hrs