Economics
Trump Ups Pressure on Fed, Seeking Rates of Zero ‘Or Less’
- U.S. should always pay lowest interest rates, president tweets
- Trump assails ‘naïveté’ of Fed’s Powell, decries ‘boneheads’
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President Donald Trump urged the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates to a level typically reserved for recessions or periods of persistently weak growth, suggesting that such a setting could allow the government to refinance Treasury debt at a lower cost.
The Fed should “get our interest rates down to ZERO, or less,” Trump said in an early Wednesday tweet that went beyond his previous attacks and demand for a cut of one percentage point. “We should then start to refinance our debt. INTEREST COST COULD BE BROUGHT WAY DOWN, while at the same time substantially lengthening the term.”