Trump puts pressure on Fed, talks about halting trade

They blatantly put pressure on the Federal Reserve and even mentioned the card of suspending trade with countries with surpluses with the US.

“Supreme Court recognizes the president’s right to suspend trade… it will be better than tariffs,” claims.

(Washington = Yonhap News) Correspondent Baek Na-ri = U.S. President Donald Trump announced on the 4th (local time) that if the Federal Reserve does not lower the base interest rate, the U.S. will suspend trade with countries that are running a deficit.

On the same day, President Trump commented on the social media platform TruthSocial, saying, "A great employment indicator has just been released," and urged that interest rates should be lowered because America's credit has become stronger.

“If we don’t lower interest rates, we will cut off trade with countries that are running deficits,” President Trump said, adding, “The Supreme Court strongly acknowledged in its foolish and costly tariff ruling that ‘the president has the absolute authority to do so.’”

He then emphasized, “This will be better than tariffs!”

“With a great new leader, the Federal Reserve Board needs to be wise,” Trump said, adding, “Be a patriot for change. High interest rates expose America to a very unfair disadvantage and I will not allow this to happen.”

If the Federal Reserve does not lower interest rates at the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) on September 15-16, it is interpreted as an attempt to protect the U.S. economy by even mentioning the unexpected card of cutting off trade with countries that are running a trade surplus with the U.S.

President Trump did not specifically mention the countries with which the United States has a trade deficit.

Last month, the U.S. employment situation improved more than expected. Non-agricultural jobs increased by 162,000 from the previous month, and this increase is the largest in the past five months.

President Trump insisted on lowering the Federal Reserve's benchmark interest rate, but as employment growth showed stronger than expected, the market gave more weight to the speculation that the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates this month.

According to FedWatch of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the federal funds rate (FFR) futures market reflected a 58.2% probability of an interest rate increase by September as of 9:10 a.m. on this day. It is an increase of about 10 percentage points compared to the previous day.

The two-year maturity U.S. Treasury bond interest rate, which is sensitive to U.S. monetary policy, rose 0.07 percentage points to 4.41% immediately after the announcement.