Trump Demands ‘Large’ Fed Rate Cut With Central Bank Set to Meet

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump stepped up his attacks on the Federal Reserve, demanding a “large cut” in interest rates as the U.S. central bank prepares for a meeting at which it is expected to lower borrowing costs by a quarter point.

“I would like to see a large cut,” he told reporters Tuesday at the White House, making one of his most direct public demands to date of the politically independent central bank and repeating a frequent call that it halt the gradual shrinking of its balance sheet.

“I would like to see immediately the quantitative tightening stop,” he said, adding the stock market and U.S. growth would have been stronger if the central bank had not tightened policy in the past. “I’m just very disappointed in the Fed.”

Policy makers are expected to lower rates for the first time in more than a decade at their two-day meeting in Washington starting Tuesday. They’ve signaled they are open to a quarter-point cut to sustain the record U.S. economic expansion amid headwinds from slowing global growth an uncertainty stemming from Trump’s trade policies.

Economists surveyed by Bloomberg don’t expect the Fed to call an early halt to the balance-sheet roll-off, which is scheduled to end in September.

To contact the reporter on this story: Justin Sink in Washington at jsink1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Margaret Collins at mcollins45@bloomberg.net, Alister Bull

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