President Trump went after the Federal Reserve again today and pushed for further rate cuts to goose the stock market – saying the central bank doesn’t ‘have a clue!’
The attacks, which have become familiar over the past several months, come just days before a deadline when new Trump tariffs on China will go into effect.
The Fed has cited trade conflicts as contributing to uncertainty in the financial markets.
Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell is a life-long Republican, and Trump appointed him to his job.
Trump also appointed three of the other four sitting members of the Fed’s Board of Governors.
It is very much Trump’s Fed.
If the Fed would cut, we would have one of the biggest Stock Market increases in a long time. Badly run and weak companies are smartly blaming these small Tariffs instead of themselves for bad management…and who can really blame them for doing that? Excuses!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2019
….We don’t have a Tariff problem (we are reigning in bad and/or unfair players), we have a Fed problem. They don’t have a clue!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 30, 2019
Trump blamed the fed for not acting in a way that would improve the bottom lines of companies that make up the U.S. stock markets.
He claimed companies were blaming the trade war and its tariffs for problems that were of their own making – after 161 business leaders sent him a letter Thursday opposing the tariffs, amid concerns the trade war could spark a global recession.
Trump denied his trade wars were harming the US economy, instead blaming the Federal Reserve for allowing a strong dollar to make American exports less competitive.
The remarks came just two days before Washington is due to impose a wave of a new tariffs on billions in Chinese imports after this month’s sharp deterioration in trade relations with Beijing.
Fears that Trump’s trade wars are damaging the world’s largest economy and pushing the world toward recession have rippled through global markets this month — with investors soothed this week by the more positive tone struck by Chinese and US officials.
But Trump has frequently lashed out at Chinese and European authorities, accusing them of deliberately weakening their currencies to gain unfair trade advantages — charges they have denied.
And he has repeatedly criticized Powell, escalating his rhetoric in recent days.
Powell criticized Trump in a speech delivered in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on August 23, explaining that the Fed cannot fully offset the economic harm of Trump’s disruptive trade policy with China.
Trump fired back, asking whether Powell is a bigger enemy than China’s authoritarian leader, Xi Jinping.
….My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2019
Trump’s conduct in this regard has been at turns inappropriate and incompetent, doing a lot to further unsettle financial markets and little to advance any of his objectives.
In turn, Bill Dudley, a former top official at the Fed, suggested it might be a good idea to try to sabotage Trump’s reelection.