Trump pushes Fed to cut rates ahead of pivotal September decision

Ten days ahead of a meeting in which the Federal Reserve will likely consider raising interest rates, the Trump administration looks to be in a full-court press to halt the hike in its tracks.

In the past week, the president, vice president, Treasury secretary and one of the president’s senior economic counselors have all urged the Fed not to raise rates and, in some cases, to cut them — an unusually broad public pressure campaign even by the standards of Trump’s long-running criticism of the central bank.

While President Donald Trump has avoided directly criticizing his new Fed chairman Kevin Warsh, as he did former chair Jay Powell, he escalated the pressure Friday by threatening to halt trade with countries that run trade surpluses with the U.S. unless the Fed cuts interest rates. Trump had never before directly threatened tariffs if the Fed didn’t lower rates.

The president’s post was followed by an interview that senior economic counselor Peter Navarro gave to former Trump advisor Steve Bannon on Friday in which he warned that a rate hike would be “careless” and “would hit precisely the sectors America needs to prosper most.”

He called the members of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee “clowns” and said Warsh is trying to “do the right thing.”

Earlier in the week, Vice President JD Vance said, “We believe that the Fed should be lowering interest rates.” He added, “We’re doing a lot of things to try to keep those interest rates down, but it would be nice to have some help from the Federal Reserve.”

And Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in a CNBC interview, noted that the Fed typically doesn’t raise rates during a supply shock until there are second- or third-order inflationary effects.

The administration’s pressure comes at a difficult time for Warsh.

Markets are barely pricing in a rate hike for the Sept. 15-16 meeting, at about 60% probability, bolstered somewhat by a strong jobs report Friday. The meeting comes just two months before the November midterm elections, in which polls show the administration faces widespread voter dissatisfaction with higher prices and interest rates.

But questions also remain about the effect the Trump administration’s pressure campaign will have on Warsh. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Trump talked to Warsh repeatedly, a report publicly backed by several of his aides. However, the president himself denied it, saying he had spoken only once to Warsh while in office.

Warsh himself has said the president has had no impact on his decisions and, in July congressional testimony, cited the Fed holding rates steady and not cutting as evidence of the central bank’s independence. At the same time, Warsh has said that the president and other politicians have a right to comment on…