Jerome H. Powell stressed in his first meeting since the president returned to the White House that policy decisions would be “based solely on careful, objective and nonpolitical analysis.”
President Trump met with Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, on Thursday after months of attacking the central bank for moving too slowly to lower interest rates.
The meeting, which was organized at Mr. Trump’s request, is the first since the president returned to the White House.
Mr. Powell and Mr. Trump discussed how the economy was evolving with regards to inflation, the labor market and growth. The chair did not share his expectations for monetary policy, the Fed said in a statement.
He told the president that such decisions would “depend entirely on incoming economic information and what that means for the outlook,” according to the statement, and would be “based solely on careful, objective and nonpolitical analysis.”
The meeting comes at a fraught moment for the economy, which now faces a variety of risks stemming from Mr. Trump’s policies. That has complicated the Fed’s job as it seeks to stamp out the remaining pressures on prices stemming from the pandemic and contain new ones that surface as a result of the tariffs, while also supporting a labor market that has begun to slow.
Since returning to the White House, the president has repeatedly imposed, paused and rolled back tariffs against America’s trading partners. His plan to rewire the global trading system was dealt a massive blow on Wednesday after a federal court ruled that many of the levies in place were illegal.