President Donald Trump on Wednesday called for interest rates to be cut to “below 1%,” hours after the Federal Reserve announced its first rate hike since 2023.
“We are carrying almost every country in the world on our backs, and we cannot continue any longer,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
“Lower US interest rates quickly!” he wrote.
The Federal Reserve, led by Chairman Kevin Warsh, a Trump appointee, raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a point early Wednesday afternoon, bringing it to a target range of 3.75% to 4%.
The decision was unanimously made by the 12-member Federal Open Market Committee.
“Inflation remains elevated,” the committee said in a statement after its latest meeting.
But President Trump, who has relentlessly pressured the Fed to drastically lower borrowing costs, argued in a truthful post that U.S. interest rates “should be below 1% because we are by far the best credit in the world.”
“Our country is booming with new investment!” President Trump wrote, having repeatedly claimed that the United States raised more than $20 trillion during his second term. Fact checkers say President Trump’s numbers are false.
“If we cut off trade with all countries with deficits, most of them, we would gain at least $1.5 trillion a year,” Trump claimed in a post on Wednesday.
Less than two weeks later, President Trump threatened to cut off trade with countries with trade surpluses with the United States unless the Fed lowered interest rates. This group includes most of the United States’ major trading partners and dozens of other countries.
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