Fed holds interest rates steady amid uncertainty over Trump’s impact on economy

Federal Reserve officials decided on Wednesday to hold interest rates steady as uncertainty over Donald Trump’s impact on the US economy looms and inflation remains above the central bank’s target levels.

This is the first time Fed policymakers have met since the president, who has made clear he wants rates to fall, returned to the White House. The benchmark interest rate now sits at a range of 4.25% to 4.5%.

While the Fed has been

cutting rates since the fall

The Fed uses interest rates to balance price increases and stability in the labor market. During the pandemic, interest rates were at near-zero levels, making it cheaper for Americans to borrow money for payments such as mortgages, car loans and other types of debt.

But a host of economic influences – supply chain issues, federal stimulus and high consumer spending, for example – drove inflation up to 9.1%, its highest level in a generation, in the summer of 2022.

Since then, the Fed has been in a long fight to tamp down price increases. Interest rates sat at approximately 5.3% for a year and a half – the highest interest rates in over a decade – before the Fed started its cutting campaign in September.

Even though inflation has gone down since that time, it has remained stubbornly above the Fed’s target rate of 2%. In December, inflation was at 2.9%, a slight uptick compared with November. Meanwhile, the jobs market showed an unexpected surge of growth last month, with more than 250,000 jobs added to the economy. The unemployment rate has remained at relatively low levels, about 4%.

Related:

The start of Trump’s second term has cast a shadow of uncertainty over the US economy, particularly as the White House

prepares

While Trump has pledged to “rapidly” bring down consumer prices, economists have warned that his tariff plans could increase consumer prices in the US, as companies hit with tariffs often pass on the impact to their customers.

Though the Fed has historically maintained bipartisan separation from the White House, Trump has claimed he understands interest rates better than the central bank’s officials, potentially teeing up conflict between him and the central bank.

“I think I know interest rates much better than they do, and I think I know it certainly much better than the one who’s primarily in charge of making the decision,” Trump

told

The Fed chair, Jerome Powell, has taken pains to remain politically neutral when questioned about potential hostility from the White House. When asked in November whether he would resign if Trump asked him to, Powell

replied with