U.S. President Donald Trump has doubled down on his efforts to influence monetary policy, calling on the U.S. Federal Reserve to cut interest rates to "zero, or less."
In a series of early morning Tweets, Trump wrote: "No Inflation! It is only the naïveté of Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve that doesn’t allow us to do what other countries are already doing… A once in a lifetime opportunity that we are missing because of Boneheads."
Monetary authorities such as the European Central Bank, the Swiss National Bank and the Bank of Japan have had policies on interest rates that are effectively below zero as a means of boosting demand for loans and stimulating sluggish economies.
Trump’s Tweets came after a Washington Post - ABC News poll that showed a majority of Americans fear the U.S. will enter a recession within the next year. Six in 10 people surveyed in said they worried a recession is "very likely" or "somewhat likely" in the coming year.
Trump’s Tweets went onto state: "The Federal Reserve should get our interest rates down to ZERO, or less, and we should then start to refinance our debt. INTEREST COST COULD BE BROUGHT WAY DOWN, while at the same time substantially lengthening the term. We have the great currency, power, and balance sheet."
To date, the U.S. Federal Reserve has rejected Trump’s demands for lower interest rates, although it did cut rates by a quarter of a percentage point earlier this year – the first time that the central bank lowered rates since the end of the "Great Recession" a decade ago.
