A cyclist passes the Federal Reserve headquarters in Washington. — Reuters
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said on Thursday he intends to announce his pick to replace Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell next week, as speculation intensifies over who will lead the U.S. central bank after Powell steps aside from the job in May.
"We're going to be announcing the head of the Fed ... and it'll be a person that will, I think, do a good job," Trump said during his first cabinet meeting of the year, reiterating his frequent call for sharply lower interest rates.
The Fed, which cut rates three times in 2025, left its benchmark interest rate unchanged in the 3.50%-3.75% range after the end of a two-day policy meeting on Wednesday. Trump says the rate should be two to three percentage points lower, a level historically consistent with a stalled or faltering economy.
The economy grew at a 4.4% annualized rate in the third quarter, according to Commerce Department data.
Over the course of the Trump administration's months-long formal search for Powell's successor, the president has been seen to favor different candidates, even as he has ramped up his campaign to exert influence over Fed decisions, whose independence from political pressure is seen as key to its ability to control inflation.
In recent months Trump has tried to fire a Fed governor in a case now before the Supreme Court, and his Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into Powell for statements he made about building renovations - a move the Fed chief has called out as a "pretext" to pressure him over monetary policy.
FOUR CANDIDATES ON TRUMP'S SHORT LIST
Now down to a four-person short list, the candidates to take the reins from Powell all agree with Trump that rates should be lower - indeed, that was one of the president's explicit criteria for his pick.
Rick Rieder, chief investment officer of BlackRock's global fixed income business, recently became the odds-on favorite to be Trump's nominee. Rieder, who has never worked in government or at the Fed, would bring a fresh face to an institution that the president accuses of entrenched political bias.
Former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh is also seen as a contender for the job; he has called for regime change at the central bank and wants, among other things, a smaller Fed balance sheet, a goal seemingly at odds with Trump's preference for looser monetary policy. Trump almost picked Warsh in 2018 for the top Fed job, but chose Powell instead, a decision the president has publicly and loudly regretted for much of the time since then.
Fed Governor Christopher Waller, one of two policymakers who dissented this week in the central bank's decision to keep rates unchanged, is also in the running. He was the first Fed policymaker to make the economic case for lower rates, saying that tariffs wouldn't cause inflation and the economy needed the support, both arguments that have won over many of his colleagues and helped seal support for the rate cuts last year.
White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett was an early front-runner for the job but is now seen as an unlikely choice after Trump said he would rather keep him in his current post. Hassett is an economist and unapologetic cheerleader for many of the president's orthodox-defying policies, including high tariffs and an immigration crackdown. - Reuters
