Richard Bernstein Advisors portfolio strategist Dan Suzuki and Kaltbaum Capital Management’s Gary Kaltbaum discuss why Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is on ‘the sidelines.’
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell met with President Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin at the White House on Monday morning after months of Trump berating Powell for his handling of monetary policy.
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The Fed disclosed the meeting Monday morning and said the group discussed the economy, growth, employment and inflation.
Powell did not discuss his expectations for monetary policy except to say that the path forward will hinge on incoming information that bears on the outlook for the economy, according to a Fed statement.
President Trump and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell are pictured in this combined photo. (AP, FILE)
Powell said that he and his colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee will set monetary policy to support maximum employment and stable prices.
Trump called the meeting “very good & cordial.”
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“Everything was discussed including interest rates, negative interest, low inflation, easing, Dollar strength & its effect on manufacturing, trade with China, E.U. & others, etc.,” he tweeted Monday.
Trump has been complaining that the Fed was too quick to raise benchmark interest rates as the economy improved, then too slow to lower them when signs pointed to slowing growth. The president has wanted the central bank to mimic Europe and Japan in setting negative interest rates.
“We are competing against these other countries, nonetheless, and the Federal Reserve doesn’t let us play the game,” Trump said during a speech last week at the Economic Club of New York. “It puts us at an economic disadvantage.”
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Trump has also suggested that appointing Powell was a mistake.
“But we all make mistakes, don’t we?” the president said last week. “Not too often. We do make them on occasion.”
At the end of October, the Fed cut rates by a quarter-percentage point for the third time this year to cushion the economy against the U.S.-China trade dispute and a global growth slowdown, but signaled that it will take a wait-and-see approach before moving rates again.
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FOX Business’ Jennifer Schonberger and Megan Henney contributed to this report.
