Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said on Thursday that he will not step down from his post if newly elected President Donald Trump asks him to resign.
When reporters asked whether he would resign at Trump’s request, Powell simply said: “No.”
“It’s not allowed under the law,” Powell said after a news conference. Fed cuts interest rates by a quarter point Two days after former President Donald Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris.
Although Trump appointed Powell in 2017, he has repeatedly criticized the chairman and the central bank for not easing monetary policies quickly enough during his administration.
During his presidency, he called Powell and his Fed colleagues “inflexible” for not cutting interest rates.
In 2020, Trump criticized the central bank and claimed that it was lagging behind its global peers in reviving the economy after the pandemic.
“I have the authority to fire her,” Trump said of Powell, who was reappointed by President Joe Biden to another term, which ends in 2026.
Trump has promised to lower rates if he wins a second term in the White House and has argued that the president should have a say in the bank’s decisions.
“I don’t think I should be allowed to order it, but I think I have the right to comment on whether interest rates should go up or down,” Trump told Bloomberg on October 15.
On Thursday, Powell said Trump’s victory would not have an immediate impact on the Fed’s policies — which are aimed at achieving the Fed’s dual mandate of maximum employment and price stability.
“In the near term, the election will have no impact on our policy decisions,” Powell said.
Powell acknowledged that the next administration’s policies could influence the Fed’s approach to its dual mandate, but he said it was too early to tell.
“It’s very early stages,” Powell said. “We don’t know what the policies are, and once we know what they are, we won’t even know when they will be implemented.”
