The Wall Street Journal's conservative editorial board issued a stark warning to President Donald Trump on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve voted to lower interest rates by 0.25%.
The vote happened after Trump applied months of public pressure on the central bank to lower interest rates. The president has moved to install multiple new governors who would vote to reduce rates, with the newest Trump-aligned governor, Stephen Miran, joining the board this week.
"President Trump wants lower interest rates, and on Wednesday, he got his wish as the Federal Open Market Committee cut the overnight rate by a quarter point," the editors argued in a new op-ed. "The FOMC also delivered an implicit warning about what this might mean for the economy. Mr. Trump now owns that, too."
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said on Wednesday that there are still some risks the U.S. economy needs to navigate. For instance, inflation and unemployment have trickled upwards. Powell said those factors have the central bank torn between two mandates: stabilizing prices and maximizing employment.
The Journal's editorial board also wished Trump "good luck" as his administration addresses these economic conditions.
"It may be that everything works out fine: inflation drifts downward after a brief price bump from tariffs, the economy booms despite tariffs and a looming labor shortage, the housing market enters a new golden age, and financial markets gallop happily off into the artificial-intelligence sunset," the editors wrote.
"But if Mr. Trump is wrong, voters will notice sustained inflation and the lack of gains in real wages. Having staked so much on his political assault on the Fed, Mr. Trump owns the outcome now for good or ill," they added.