The US Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate on Thursday by a quarter-point in response to the steady decline in the once-high inflation that had angered Americans and helped drive Republican Donald Trump’s presidential election victory this week.
The rate cut follows a larger half-point reduction in September, and reflects the Fed’s renewed focus on supporting the job market and fighting inflation, which now barely exceeds the central bank’s 2 percent target.
Asked at a news conference how Trump’s election might affect the Fed’s policymaking, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said that “in the near term, the election will have no effects on our [interest rate] decisions.”
Photo: AFP
However, Trump’s election, beyond its economic consequences, has raised the specter of meddling by the White House in the Fed’s policy decisions. Trump has said that as president, he should have a voice in the central bank’s interest rate decisions.
The Fed has long guarded its role as an independent agency able to make difficult decisions about borrowing rates free from political interference.
Yet in his previous term in the White House, Trump publicly attacked Powell after the Fed raised rates to fight inflation, and he might do so again.
Asked whether he would resign if Trump asked him to, Powell, who would have a year left in his second four-year term as Fed chairman when Trump takes office, replied simply, “No.”
Powell said that in his view, Trump could not fire or demote him: It would “not be permitted under the law,” he said.
Thursday’s Fed rate cut reduced its benchmark rate to about 4.6 percent, down from a four-decade high of 5.3 percent. The Fed had kept its rate that high for more than a year to fight the worst inflation streak in four decades. Annual inflation has since fallen from a 9.1 percent peak in mid-2022 to a three-and-a-half-year low of 2.4 percent in September.
When its latest policy meeting ended on Thursday, the Fed in a statement said that the “unemployment rate has moved up but remains low,” and while inflation has fallen closer to the 2 percent target level, it “remains somewhat elevated.”
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
‘ARMED GROUP’: Two defendants used Chinese funds to form the ‘Republic of China Taiwan Military Government,’ posing a threat to national security, prosecutors said A retired lieutenant general has been charged after using funds from China to recruit military personnel for an “armed” group that would assist invading Chinese forces, prosecutors said yesterday. The retired officer, Kao An-kuo (高安國), was among six people indicted for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法), the High Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement. The group visited China multiple times, separately and together, from 2018 to last year, where they met Chinese military intelligence personnel for instructions and funding “to initiate and develop organizations for China,” prosecutors said. Their actions posed a “serious threat” to “national security and social stability,” the statement
RSS