Fed voted to pause cuts to interest rate, which currently sits between 3.5% and 3.75%, after slashing it three times in fall
The US Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged after its first rate-setting meeting of the year on Wednesday, resisting enormous pressure from the White House to lower rates.
A majority of members in the Fed’s federal open market committee (FOMC) voted to pause interest rate cuts after slashing rates three times in the fall. Rates currently sit at a range of 3.5% to 3.75%.
The Trump administration has put unprecedented pressure on the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, to cut rates, with Donald Trump launching personal attacks on Powell and the justice department opening a criminal investigation into his handling of the refurbishment of the central bank’s offices.
The FOMC has 12 voting members and meets just eight times a year to set interest rates. The stakes of each meeting have been high during Trump’s second term. Though economists say that the Fed’s independence, as the US central bank, is key for economic stability, the president has unabashedly tried to bend the Fed to his economic agenda.
