President Trump in an early morning tweet on Wednesday knocked the “boneheads” at the Federal Reserve, calling for interest rates of “zero, or less.”
“The Federal Reserve should get our interest rates down to ZERO, or less, and we should then start to refinance our debt. INTEREST COST COULD BE BROUGHT WAY DOWN, while at the same time substantially lengthening the term. We have the great currency, power, and balance sheet,” he tweeted.
“The USA should always be paying the the lowest rate. No Inflation! It is only the naïveté of Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve that doesn’t allow us to do what other countries are already doing. A once in a lifetime opportunity that we are missing because of ‘Boneheads,’ ” he said in a follow-up post.
{mosads}Trump has frequently attacked the central bank and pressured it to lower interest rates.
Last month, the president said he would not prevent Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell from resigning if he wanted to and called him an “enemy.”
“Do I want him to resign? Let me put it this way: If he did, I wouldn’t stop him,” Trump said.
The president later blamed the central bank for a recent slowdown in manufacturing, a key sector he promised to revive as a candidate.
The decline could complicate Trump’s reelection bid, as the president has touted the state of the economy as one of his accomplishments.
Job growth has recently slowed in the U.S., with 130,000 new jobs created in August. The figure was lower than economists expected and comes amid the president’s spiraling trade war with China.
Trump in his first tweet of the day on Wednesday noted that China has decided to exempt some U.S. products from retaliatory tariffs ahead of trade talks between Washington and Beijing.
Updated at 7:27 a.m.