Donald Trump says the Federal Reserve “don’t have a clue”
Donald Trump has upped his attacks on the US Federal Reserve, saying they “don’t have a clue”.
The President was responding on social media to comments made by Fox News presenter Maria Bartiromo saying the Fed was “behind the curve” on cutting interest rates.
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Trump responded: “They don’t have a clue, but I do. The USA is doing great despite the Fed!”
The attack is the latest in a long line aimed against the Fed for not cutting interest rates fast or deep enough.
The reserve bank cut the interest rate last month by 25 basis points for a target rate of between 1.75 and 2 per cent.
It was the second cut of the year after the Fed dropped the target rate to between 2 and 2.25 per cent in July.
Trump responded to the October announcement by calling Fed chairman Jerome Powell a “bonehead” and saying the target rate should be zero.
He said: “Powell and the Federal Reserve Fail Again. No ‘guts,’ no sense, no vision! A terrible communicator!”
In August, he tweeted: “China is not our problem, though Hong Kong is not helping. Our problem is with the Fed. Raised too much & too fast. Now too slow to cut.
“We should easily be reaping big rewards and gains, but the Fed is holding us back.”
The Fed has been an independent institution since the mid-1950s, with presidents generally respecting this status.
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Powell warned against politicians encroaching on the independence of the institution in a speech yesterday.
He said: “I leave you with this statement from [former Fed chairman] Marriner Eccles: ‘The management of the central bank must be absolutely free from the dangers of control by politics and by private interests, singly or combined’.”