President Trump issued a preliminary response to Jerome Powell and the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) moments before they announced a decision not to cut interest rates for the fifth time since December.
The FOMC announced on Wednesday afternoon that it decided to maintain interest rates at the current level, as President Trump puts massive pressure on Fed Chair Jerome Powell to cut the rates.
This is despite Quarter 2 GDP numbers showing positive economic growth, hundreds of billions of dollars in new business investment, and hundreds of billions of dollars in tariff revenues into the United States.
Notably, Trump announced a deal with Japan recently where they’ve agreed to invest over half a trillion dollars in the United States, of which the US “will receive 90% of the Profits,” Trump said. Reciprocal tariffs of 15% will also be imposed on Japan.
JUST IN: Trump Announces “Massive Deal” with Japan with 15% Reciprocal Tariffs – $550 Billion to be Invested with U.S. Receiving 90% of Profits
Earlier this month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a cabinet meeting earlier this month that he estimates the United States will take in “well over $300 billion” from tariffs “by the end of the year.”
Days later, new budget data showed that tariff revenues as a share of federal revenue had more than doubled, and tariffs created a surplus as opposed to a $71 billion deficit in June 2024 under Biden. US Customs duty collections for fiscal year 2025 had already topped $100 billion for the first time in history, with several months still to go.
But Jerome Powell and the FOMC say that this is not enough, inflation and unemployment are too high, and “uncertainty about the economic outlook remains elevated.”
Two Trump appointees to the Fed’s Board of Governors, Governor Christopher Waller and Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman, voted against the action.
President Trump responded on Wednesday during a congressional bill signing ceremony after signing a bill to reform VA home loans and expand mortgage assistance for veterans. He slammed “Too Late” Jerome Powell, saying “he’s done a bad job.”
“Each point that this gentleman keeps up costs us $365 billion a year,” the President said while highlighting the massive income from tariffs and trade deals. “We should be the lowest interest rate, and we’re not. We’re 38, number 38, because of the Fed.”
WATCH:
Reporter: You said that higher interest rates are making it harder for veterans to refinance. With the stronger than expected GDP report out this morning, what do you say to analysts who worry that lowering interest rates would actually lead to inflation?
Trump: Well, if that happens, then we’d just raise them. What you do is you lower them, and let’s see if there’s inflation. Right now, there’s no inflation. Everybody thought there would be. All we have is billions of dollars of cash pouring into our country from other countries that took advantage of us for many, many years. You know, they were taking advantage of– we were like the stupid people that didn’t know what they were doing. They took advantage of us, other countries, friend and foe. And by the way, the friend was oftentimes much worse than the foe when it comes to trade.
So,if that happens, what you do is you raise your rates and you do what you have to do to stop inflation, but we’re keeping the rates high, and it’s hurting people from buying houses. So, we don’t want that. If, for any reason, that happened, in a year or two, if there’s some signs of inflation coming back– right now there’s not. We have a great thing going. I think we’re going to have the richest economy you’ve ever seen. We have money coming in that we’ve never even thought about at numbers that nobody’s ever seen before. We have a deal with Japan, where they’re going to pay us $550 billion; we have a deal with Europe, where they’re doing $750 billion plus $400 billion, plus $300 billion; and many other countries. It’s likewise, you know, relatively those are two big ones, but likewise. So, we have a lot of money coming in, and we have no inflation, and we’re very strong, and we should be lowering the rates.
You know, each point that this gentleman keeps up costs us $365 billion a year. Think of that, one point, $365 billion. If you bring it down a point, we save 365. We should be the lowest interest rate, and we’re not. We’re 38, number 38, because of the Fed. It’s all because of the Fed. He’s done a bad job. Now, he’s got a meeting today, but I call [Powell] “Too Late.” He’s always too late, even if he does it today, probably wont. I hear they’re going to do it in September, not today. For whatever reason, nobody knows, but Europe, as you know, cut their rates 11 times in the last short period of time.
But the good news is we’re doing better than anybody anywhere in the world. Nobody’s doing anything even close to us, even with the higher rates. The higher rates do affect housing though because people can’t go out and get a loan or refinance their house, and it would be nice to have them be able to do that. That would be just another check of a box that would be very important.
The post President Trump Responds to Jerome Powell’s Refusal to Cut Rates for Fifth Time Since December (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.