United States Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin speaks during an interview with Reuters at the International Monetary Fund – World Bank Annual Meeting 2018 in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, October 12, 2018. REUTERS/Johannes P. Christo
October 12, 2018
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said on Friday that President Donald Trump does not feel he needs to attack the Federal Reserve and respects its independence.
“The president likes low interest rates. The president is concerned about the Fed raising interest rates too much and slowing down the economy and those are obviously natural concerns,” Mnuchin said in a CNBC interview from the International Monetary Fund meeting in Bali, Indonesia.
Mnuchin said Fed Chairman Jay Powell was doing a good job and that he understands the regulatory environment.
Mnuchin said he did not see the recent stock market selloff related to high interest rates and Fed policy.
“I think the fundamentals are still very strong. The U.S. economy is strong. U.S. earnings are strong so I see this as just a natural correction after the markets were up a lot,” he said.
“There’s really no new information in the market on the Fed or on trade for that matter.”
Mnuchin said there is a normalization in the yield curve on bond markets.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
