Trump Criticizes the Fed in a Private Meeting With Powell

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/29/us/politics/trump-powell-meeting-fed-economy.html

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President Trump revived his criticism of the Federal Reserve in a private meeting with its chair, Jerome H. Powell, on Thursday, saying it was a mistake not to lower interest rates.

The meeting, which was organized at Mr. Trump’s request, is the first since the president returned to the White House.

Mr. Powell and Mr. Trump discussed how the economy was evolving with regards to inflation, the labor market and growth. The chair did not share his expectations for monetary policy, the Fed said in a statement.

He told the president that such decisions would “depend entirely on incoming economic information and what that means for the outlook,” according to the statement, and would be “based solely on careful, objective and nonpolitical analysis.”

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Thursday that Mr. Trump expressed his belief to Mr. Powell that the Fed was making a mistake by not lowering interest rates.

The meeting comes at a fraught moment for the economy, which now faces a variety of risks stemming from Mr. Trump’s policies. That has complicated the Fed’s job as it seeks to stamp out the remaining pressures on prices stemming from the pandemic and contain new ones that surface as a result of the tariffs, while also supporting a labor market that has begun to slow.