- Jerome Powell has been clear that the Fed’s decision on the base rate is independent of political feeling. But Wilbur Ross, President Trump’s former commerce secretary, told Fortune that the president’s threats toward Powell may be reinforcing the Fed’s reluctance to cut rates. The FOMC has an unwinnable dilemma: Even if it wants to base its decision solely on the data it may unconsciously be influenced by politics.
Despite insistence from President Trump that the base interest rate should be cut, it seems the policy and rhetoric out of the White House itself may the very reason why the Fed can’t wield the axe.
For many months, Jerome Powell and other members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) have noted that tariffs are one of a number of factors impacting their view of the economy. More specifically, they want to know how much of the cost from the sanctions will be passed on to U.S. consumers.
But Trump’s former commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, also believes that because of the threats the president has levied against the Fed chairman, Powell has little to lose by refusing to capitulate.
Trump has threatened to fire Powell from his role as head of the Federal Open Market Committee for refusing to cut rates—a jibe he had to walk back after markets shuddered at the notion of the White House interfering so deeply in the independent central bank.
But the president has also made it clear that when Powell’s tenure comes to an end next year, he won’t be nominated for the role again. Instead, Trump has said he will be nominating an economist who is more open to normalizing the base rate.
Trump has also begun to question Powell’s tenure as Fed chairman, visiting the site of the central bank’s office renovation last week after his administration had questioned the costs and nature of the work.
With his job prospects already decided, and potentially his legacy also being undermined, Secretary Ross argues that Powell’s motivation—consciously or not—may not be to behave in a way favorable to the Oval Office.
“It is a very known fact that for a long time now, several years, the president and Powell have not gotten along at all, and it’s clear he’s known for quite some little while that Trump has no intention of reappointing him,” Secretary Ross tells Fortune in an exclusive interview. “His term ends in the middle of next year so he had no motivation from that point of view to be cooperative.”
“And I’m sure, as any human being might, I’m sure he resents the amount of pressure being put on him.”
Powell: The decision is never political
Powell has repeatedly rejected the notion that the decision about the base rate is down to anything except economic data and anecdotal evidence submitted to the FOMC by businesses on the ground.
At a press conference last year, for example, Powell told reporters: “We’re always going into this meeting and asking ‘What’s the right thing to do for the people we serve?’ We do that and we make a decision as a group and then we announce it. That’s always what it is, it’s never about anything else. Nothing else is discussed.”
And while the Fed chairman hasn’t disclosed his thoughts on whether he would even want to serve a third term leading the central bank, he has been clear that President Trump couldn’t remove him from the position ahead of time even if he wanted to. During a testimony of the Senate Banking Committee earlier this year, Powell said that the notion of being fired is “pretty clearly not allowed under the law.”
The Fed would reject the notion that Powell’s opinion alone sets the base rate. There are, after all, 12 voting members of the FOMC, and non-voting regional bank presidents and are economists also given the opportunity to share their thoughts and data.
“Independence is a concept and it’s a time-honored one, but that doesn’t mean that the Fed can’t be responsive,” Secretary Ross continued. “And if you noticed, even though at the time inflation was higher in the runup to the last election, Powell didn’t have any trouble reducing interest rates. It’s only since Trump got in that he has been much more cautious.”
The FOMC did indeed cut rates in December, when inflation sat at 2.9% compared to June’s 2.7%. At the time, the Fed said the move was the right one because there were indications of underlying economic slowdown, which a restrictive stance was not aiding.
At the time, Powell was clear that the road downwards would be slow, saying: “We need to take our time, not rush and make a very careful assessment, but only when we’ve actually seen what the policies are and how they’ve been implemented.” Since then the FOMC has seen the policies, and has maintained a wait-and-see attitude.
While stopping short of calling Powell political—as President Trump has done—Secretary Ross said Powell’s current stance “raises the question” as to the possibility of “political motivation.”
He said: “Whoever is in the Fed is, after all, a human being, and human beings have political preferences, they have economic preferences, so the word ‘independent’ doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be just a fact-based.”
Ultimately. Powell and the FOMC face an unwinnable dilemma. If they refuse to cut it, only furthers critics’ speculation that Powell is resisting pressure from Trump. Yet if they do reduce the base rate, it looks like a political capitulation from a federally mandated independent Fed.
Perhaps the only thing the FOMC can do is stay tight-lipped on politics, and stick to the data.
