President Trump has long hectored the Federal Reserve to lower borrowing costs. One of its top officials thinks the central bank should do so at its next meeting, which takes place at the end of month.
Christopher J. Waller, a Fed governor who was appointed by Mr. Trump in his first term and is seen as a potential contender to be the next Fed chair, laid out the case on Thursday for a quarter-point rate cut when the central bank next votes on monetary policy on July 30. He also endorsed further interest rate cuts this year.
His argument rests on an assumption that price pressures stemming from Mr. Trump’s sweeping tariffs will not lead to a persistent inflation problem but only a temporary burst. He also said there had been a substantial softening in the labor market, and that the economy was poised to grow at a much slower pace this year.
Mr. Waller advocated for returning the Fed’s policy settings to “neutral,” meaning interest rates at a level that neither speeds up nor slows down business activity.
“With inflation near target and the upside risks to inflation limited, we should not wait until the labor market deteriorates before we cut the policy rate,” he said at an event hosted by New York University on Thursday.
Mr. Waller’s comments come at a tumultuous moment for the Fed. Mr. Trump has intensified his pressure campaign on Jerome H. Powell, the central bank chair, and has openly toyed with firing him before his term ends next year. During a meeting with roughly a dozen House Republicans on Tuesday, the president showed off a draft letter firing Mr. Powell and asked whether he should send it. He later said that it was “highly unlikely” that he would follow through with ousting Mr. Powell unless he had committed “fraud.”
The president’s ire stems from the Fed’s decision to hold off on interest rate cuts since the start of the year. After cutting rates in 2024, the Fed has since paused as it tries to assess the impact that Mr. Trump’s tariffs and other policies will have on the economy.
As a result, Mr. Trump has engaged in a name-calling campaign, labeling Mr. Powell as “Mr. Too Late” and arguing that the Fed should slash rates to 1 percent, a level that is usually reserved for times of economic distress. He and his allies have lately introduced a new front in their attacks on Mr. Powell, arguing that he has mismanaged a roughly $2.5 billion renovation of the central bank’s headquarters in Washington.
The Fed is expected to once again keep rates at their current level of 4.25 to 4.5 percent when officials meet in two weeks. While that is likely to anger Mr. Trump, the quarter-point reduction proposed by Mr. Waller is also unlikely to satisfy the president, who has called on the central bank to cut by 3 percentage points.
Nearly all of the other policymakers at the Fed, however, have endorsed the central bank keeping interest rates steady at the July meeting. They have argued that with the economy still solid, and Mr. Trump’s global trade war beginning to raise consumer prices more significantly, there was little urgency to restart interest rate cuts.
Data released this week showed inflation picking up as prices for a number of items most exposed to tariffs, like furniture and appliances, jumped.
In his remarks, Mr. Waller sought to counter the view that the labor market was doing well. While monthly jobs growth was strong in June, hiring at private companies was much more subdued. Mr. Waller described the situation as “near stall speed and flashing red.”
“Looking across the soft and hard data, I get a picture of a labor market on the edge,” he said, referencing the combination of surveys and government economic releases that he tracks.
Mr. Waller warned that waiting until the Fed’s next meeting in September or later to cut rates risked the chance of “falling behind the curve of appropriate policy.”
Colby Smith covers the Federal Reserve and the U.S. economy for The Times.
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