What appears to have been the first one-on-one meeting this year between the Federal Reserve Board chairman and the U.S. president took place Thursday at the White House, according to information released by the Fed.
The Federal Reserve issued a release that said Fed Board Chair Jerome H. (“Jay”) Powell, at the president’s invitation, met with President Donald Trump (R) at the White House to discuss economic developments, “including for growth, employment, and inflation.”
“Chair Powell did not discuss his expectations for monetary policy,” the release states, “except to stress that the path of policy will depend entirely on incoming economic information and what that means for the outlook.
“Finally, Chair Powell said that he and his colleagues on the FOMC will set monetary policy, as required by law, to support maximum employment and stable prices and will make those decisions based solely on careful, objective, and non-political analysis.”
The FOMC – Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed’s monetary policy setting arm – in its May 6-7 meeting voted to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 4.25% to 4.5%.
Thursday’s announcement of a meeting between Powell and Trump is the first publicly noted one for 2025. The Fed has disclosed a number of meetings this year between the Fed chair and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, however.
There is about a two-month lag between any given month and the Fed’s release of the chair’s calendar for that month. The latest calendar published for Powell is for March, and it shows Powell and Bessent met in person twice:
- Monday, March 3: breakfast at the Fed (one hour)
- Thursday, March 27: breakfast at Treasury (one hour)
In February, the calendar shows Powell and Bessent held a 30-minute phone call Monday, Feb. 3; a 15-minute phone call Tuesday, Feb. 4; a one-hour breakfast meeting at Treasury on Wednesday, Feb. 19; and a 15-minute phone call Thursday, Feb. 20.
In January, the Fed chair’s calendar shows, Powell and Bessent had breakfast at the Federal Reserve on Thursday, Jan. 30, meeting for one hour.
Trump has been vocal in recent weeks about replacing (or “terminating”) Powell, whose four-year term as chair expires in May 2026. His term as a board member ends in January 2028. In his first term as president, Trump criticized Powell even though the president nominated him for the job. President Joe Biden (D) nominated Powell for a second term as Fed chair in 2022.
Powell was asked at a November 2024 press conference whether he would resign if Trump asked him to do so. Powell said “no.”
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