By Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said he will not remove Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve Board chairman before his term ends in May 2026 while describing the central banker as "a total stiff" and repeating calls for the Fed to lower interest rates.
Trump insisted that his moves to upend the global trading system with higher tariffs would eventually make Americans rich, and insisted that a first-quarter contraction in the U.S. economy was the result of former President Joe Biden’s policies.
In an interview with “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker” on NBC News that aired on Sunday, Trump said he expected the Fed to lower interest rates at some point.
"Well, he should lower them. And at some point, he will. He’d rather not because he’s not a fan of mine. You know, he just doesn’t like me because I think he’s a total stiff," he said in the interview, which was taped in Florida on Friday.
Asked if he would remove Powell before his term as chair ends in 2026, Trump issued his most definitive denial, saying, "No, no, no. That was a total – why would I do that? I get to replace the person in another short period of time."
Wall Street stocks fell sharply last month after Trump doubled down on his attacks against Powell, amplifying concerns about the central bank’s autonomy and rattling markets. After the nosedive, Trump has backed off somewhat.
The comments aired on Sunday were the clearest indication yet that the president would keep Powell in place, which could reassure markets deeply unsettled by Trump’s moves to upend the global trading system with a tsunami of tariffs.
On April 2, Trump imposed a 10% tariff on most countries, along with higher tariff rates for many trading partners that were then suspended for 90 days. He has also imposed 25% tariffs on autos, steel and aluminum, 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and 145% tariffs on China.
MIXED SIGNALS ON ECONOMY
Trump continued to send mixed messages on the economy, dismissing concerns about a first-quarter decline in GDP and arguing that his predecessor was to blame for any economic weakness, but that he deserved credit for any signs of strength.
Trump’s whipsaw moves on tariffs have sparked the most volatile weeks on Wall Street since the early part of the COVID pandemic five years ago.
Asked when the economy would be solely his responsibility, Trump said, "It partially is right now. And I really mean this. I think the good parts are the Trump economy and the bad parts are the Biden economy because he’s done a terrible job."
He said his administration should get credit for driving down energy and gasoline costs and starting to reverse the U.S. trade deficit.
He glossed over concerns that tariffs on China would raise consumer prices, saying Americans simply didn’t need large numbers of cheap goods such as dolls and pencils.
"I’m just saying they don’t need to have 30 dolls," Trump said. "They can have three. They don’t need to have 250 pencils. They can have five."
Trump’s administration is negotiating with over 15 countries for trade deals that could avert the higher tariffs, and officials say the first deal could be announced soon.
During the interview with NBC News, Trump declined to rule out making some of the tariffs permanent.
"No, I wouldn’t do that because if somebody thought they were going to come off the table, why would they build in the United States?" he said, touting trillions of dollars in investments announced by foreign and domestic companies.
Trump acknowledged that he had been "very tough with China," essentially cutting off trade between the world’s two large economies, but said Beijing now wanted to reach an agreement.
"We’ve gone cold turkey," he said. "That means we’re not losing a trillion dollars ... because we’re not doing business with them right now. And they want to make a deal. They want to make a deal very badly. We’ll see how that all turns out, but it’s got to be a fair deal."