U.S. President Donald Trump is at it again – urging the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates and spur economic growth.
In a series of Tweets sent Tuesday night, President Trump called on the U.S. central bank to lower interest rates in order to "rocket" the U.S. economy to new highs.
Specifically, President Trump called on the Federal Reserve to lower its benchmark interest rate by as much as a full percentage point from its current range of between 2.25% and 2.50%.
"Our Federal Reserve has incessantly lifted interest rates, even though inflation is very low, and instituted a very big dose of quantitative tightening," Tweeted the President. "We have the potential to go up like a rocket if we did some lowering of rates, like one point … with our wonderfully low inflation, we could be setting major records, and, at the same time, make our National Debt start to look small!".
After keeping its benchmark interest rate at zero for the better part of a decade in order to stimulate the economy, the U.S. central bank has raised the rate eight times since Trump became President to keep inflation under control as the economy has improved. A cut of a full percentage point would take the U.S. benchmark interest rate back to where it was in December 2017.
The Fed is currently holding a two-day meeting to discuss where to set its rate, and on Wednesday, it is expected to announce it has decided to maintain the interest rate where it is currently. It is not the first time that Trump has asked the Federal Reserve for lower interest rates, which makes the cost of borrowing cheaper and tends to encourage consumers and businesses to spend and invest.
Trump’s approach is different from his predecessors in the Oval Office who declined to comment on monetary policy and kept the Federal Reserve at arm’s length.
