President Donald Trump said the Federal Reserve would be wrong to raise interest rates as his nominee Kevin Warsh prepares to chair his first Fed policy meeting.
Trump, in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, sought to push back against market sentiment after a blowout US jobs report for May spurred bets that the Fed’s next move will be a rate hike to keep inflation in check.
“Nowadays when you have good reports, the market goes down because they think they’re going to raise interest rates,” Trump said. “There’s no reason to raise interest rates.”
Trump’s comment, recorded Friday and aired Sunday, adds to the economic and political forces tugging at Warsh as he prepares to chair his first Federal Open Market Committee meeting on June 16–17. Raising the benchmark rate “is the wrong thing to do,” Trump said. “We should actually lower interest rates.”
Friday’s US employment report showed May job growth topped all forecasts, prompting a selloff in Treasuries and leading traders to fully price in a quarter-point increase in the Fed’s key rate by the end of the year.
