President Donald Trump said Thursday that he will nominate top economic adviser to the Fed Council committee for four months to temporarily fill the vacancy while continuing to look for a long-term appointment.
Trump said he appointed Stephen Miran, chairman of the White House Economic Advisory Council, to fill the seat Vacated by Governor Adriana Kuglera Biden-appointed man resigned Friday. Miran, if approved by the Senate, will last until January 31, 2026.
The appointment is Trump’s first opportunity to have more control over the Fed, one of the few remaining independent federal agencies. Trump has Criticize ruthlessly Current Chairman Jerome Powell kept short-term interest rates unchanged and called him a “stubborn idiot” on social media last week.
Miran has been a major defender of Trump’s tax cuts and tariff rate hikes, believing that this combination will generate enough economic growth to reduce budget deficits. He also raised the risk of higher inflation from Trump tariffs, a major source of concern for Powell.
Miran’s choices may intensify concerns about the Fed’s political influence, which traditionally is isolated from daily politics. Feeding Independence It is often seen as the key to ensuring tough measures politicians may not be willing to take to combat inflation, such as raising interest rates.
Federal Reserve governor votes on all central bank interest rate decisions and their financial regulatory policies.
If approved, Milan’s nomination will increase a near-determined vote in favor of lower interest rates. Kugler responded to Powell’s view that the Fed should keep interest rates unchanged and further evaluate the impact of tariffs on the economy before taking any action.
Trump said he would appoint Fed officials who would lower interest rates, which he said would reduce the federal government’s large $36 trillion debt pile. Trump also hopes to lower interest rates to raise Dead Family Salespartly by Higher mortgage costs. But the Fed did not set it directly Long-term interest rate For things like buying a home and buying something like shopping.
At last week’s latest meeting, Fed officials Keep the critical rate unchanged Its position was 4.3% after cutting the three-rate rate in the second half of last year. However, two Federal Reserve Governors Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman were reluctant to accept the decision. Both were appointed by Trump in his first term.
Nevertheless, even though 12 Fed officials voted on interest rate policy among the board members, many remained worried that Trump could push higher inflation in the coming months.
After Miran’s initial appointment ends, Miran can be renamed in the Fed’s long term or replaced by another nominee.
Powell’s term as chairman will end in May 2026. However, even if he resigns as chairman, Powell can remain on the board until January 2028. This would deny Trump’s chance to appoint additional decision makers for the Fed’s board of directors.
As a result, one option for Trump is to appoint Powell to eventually replace Chairman Coogler, with the remaining four months of term completed. The main candidates for the position include former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh from 2006 to 2011 and Kevin Hassett, a regular critic of Chairman Powell and another Trump economic adviser.
Another option for the White House is to choose Waller, who has already been on the board, to replace Powell and is widely mentioned as a candidate.
Marco Casiraghi, senior economist at investment banking Evercore ISI noted that Miran’s choice may be a positive signal for Waller, because once Powell resigned, Trump did not take the opportunity to nominate someone who might become president.
After releasing its July work report last Friday, Milan criticized the Fed’s chairman for not lowering the benchmark interest rate, saying Trump had been proven to be correct in his first term and would become inflation again. The president puts pressure on Powell to believe his tariffs will not exacerbate higher inflationary pressures.
“What we’re seeing now in real time is the repetition of this pattern, and the president will eventually prove to be correct,” Milan said on MSNBC. “The Fed will have a lag, which may be too late and eventually catch up with the president’s point of view.”
Last year, Miran expressed support for some unconventional economic views in comments on the Federal Reserve and international economics.
Last November, he Proposed measures This will reduce the value of the dollar to increase exports, reduce imports and reduce the U.S. trade deficit, which is Trump’s top priority. He also suggested that tariffs could push our trading partners, such as the EU and Japan, to accept cheap dollars as part of the “Mar-A-Lago Agreement,” an echo of the Plaza Accord reached in the 1980s, reducing the value of the dollar.
As a researcher at the conservative Manhattan Institute, Milan was in March 2024 It also proposed Overhaul of the Fed’s governance, including making it easier for the president to fire its board members.
“The current governance of the Federal Reserve promotes collective thinking, which leads to major monetary policy errors,” Miran wrote in a paper with Dan Katz, now a senior official in the Treasury.
