President Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the Federal Reserve slash interest rates to 1% “or less,” hours after the central bank announced its first rate hike since 2023.
“We are ‘carrying’ almost every country in the World, and that cannot go on any longer,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
“LOWER THE INTEREST RATES FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND FAST!” he wrote.
The Fed, led by Trump-picked Chairman Kevin Warsh, earlier Wednesday afternoon raised benchmark interest rates a quarter percentage point, to a target range of 3.75%-4%.
The decision, by the 12-member Federal Open Market Committee, was unanimous.
“Inflation remains elevated,” the committee said in a statement following its latest meeting.
Updated projections released Wednesday show a strong majority of Fed officials expect another rate increase could be on the way.
But Trump, who has relentlessly pressured the Fed to drastically lower borrowing costs, insisted in his Truth post that rates in the U.S. “should be 1%, or less, because we are the Best Credit in the World — BY FAR.”
“Our Country is BOOMING with new Investment!” wrote Trump, who has repeatedly claimed that the U.S. has raked in as much as $20 trillion or more during his second term. Fact-checkers say Trump’s figures are false.
“If we stopped Trading with every country that we have a Deficit with, which is most of them, we would make, at least, 1.5 Trillion Dollars a year,” Trump claimed in Wednesday’s post.
Less than two weeks earlier, Trump threatened that if the Fed doesn’t cut rates, he will cut off trade with countries that have trade surpluses with the U.S. That group includes most of the U.S.’s top trading partners, along with dozens of other countries.
That extreme threat poured gasoline on Trump’s yearslong pressure campaign against the Fed, which had temporarily subsided after Warsh succeeded Jerome Powell as chairman.
So far, however, Trump and his aides have refrained from attacking Warsh directly.
White House spokesman Kush Desai told Fox News earlier Wednesday afternoon that Trump “absolutely” still believes in the independence of the Fed.
“But that doesn’t change the fact that the president of the United States has a First Amendment right” to speak out “when when things go awry,” Desai added.
