Trump and Powell bicker over Fed building renovations as president ratchets up pressure campaign

The Mainichi

4 days ago

WASHINGTON (AP) -- After months of criticizing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, President Donald Trump took the fight to the Fed's front door on Thursday, publicly scorning the central bank chief over the ballooning costs of a long-planned building project. Powell pushed back, challenging the president's latest price tag as incorrect.
Wearing hard hats and grim faces, standing in the middle of the construction project, Trump and Powell addressed the assembled TV cameras. Trump charged that the renovation would cost $3.1 billion, much higher than the Fed's $2.5 billion figure. Powell, standing next to him, shook his head.
The Fed chair, after looking at a paper presented to him by Trump, said the president was including the cost of renovating a separate Fed building, known as the Martin building, that was finished five years ago.
The visit represented a significant ratcheting up of the president's pressure on Powell to lower borrowing costs, which Trump says would accelerate economic growth and reduce the government's interest payments. Presidents rarely visit the Fed's offices, though they are just a few blocks from the White House, an example of the central bank's independence from day-to-day politics.
"We have to get the interest rates down," Trump said later after a short tour, addressing the cameras this time without Powell. "People are pretty much unable to buy houses."
Trump is likely to be disappointed next week, however, when Fed officials will meet to decide its next steps on interest rates. Powell and other officials have signaled they will likely keep their key rate unchanged at about 4.3%. However, economists and Wall Street investors expect the Fed may start cutting rates in September.
The Federal Reserve sets a short-term interest rate that influences other borrowing costs, such as mortgages, auto loans and credit card rates. Yet the Fed doesn't directly control those other rates, which are ultimately set in financial markets. Last September, when the Fed cut its rate a half-point, mortgage rates actually rose in response.
Trump did step back a bit from some of his recent threats to fire Powell before his term ends May 26. Asked if the rising costs of the Fed's renovation, estimated in 2022 to cost $1.9 billion, was a "fireable offense," Trump said, "I don't want to put this in that category."
"To do that is a big move, and I don't think that's necessary," Trump added. "I just want to see one thing happen, very simple: Interest rates come down."
And on his Truth Social site, Trump said, "The cost overruns are substantial but, on the positive side, our Country is doing very well and can afford just about anything -- Even the cost of this building!"
The Fed allowed reporters to tour the building before the visit by Trump, who, in his real estate career, bragged about his own lavish spending on architectural accoutrements that gave a Versailles-like golden flair to his buildings.
Journalists get rare tour of Fed renovation
On Thursday, reporters wound through cement mixers, front loaders and plastic pipes as they got a close-up view of the active construction site that encompasses the Fed's historic headquarters, known as the Marriner S. Eccles building, and a second building across 20th Street in Washington.
Fed staff, who declined to be identified, said that greater security requirements, rising materials costs and tariffs, and the need to comply with historic preservation measures drove up the cost of the project, which was budgeted in 2022 at $1.9 billion.
Trump in 2018 imposed a 25% duty on steel and 10% on aluminum. He increased them this year to 50%. Steel prices are up about 60% since the plans were approved, while construction materials costs overall are up about 50%, according to government data.
The staff pointed out new blast-resistant windows and seismic walls that were needed to comply with modern building codes and security standards set out by the Department of Homeland Security. The Fed has to build with the highest level of security in mind, Fed staff said, including something called "progressive collapse," in which only parts of the building would fall if hit with explosives.
Sensitivity to the president's pending visit among Fed staff was high during the tour. Reporters were ushered into a small room outside the Fed's boardroom, where 19 officials meet eight times a year to decide whether to change short-term interest rates. The room, which will have a security booth, is oval-shaped, and someone had written "oval office" on plywood walls.
The Fed staff downplayed the inscription as a joke. When reporters returned to the room later, it had been painted over.
During the tour, Fed staff also showed the elevator shaft that congressional critics have said is for "VIPs" only. Powell has since said it will be open to all Fed staff. The renovation includes an 18-inch (45-cm) extension so the elevator reaches a slightly elevated area that is now accessible only by steps or a ramp. A planning document that said the elevator will only be for the Fed's seven governors was erroneous and later amended, staff said.
Renovations have been in the works for a while
Plans for the renovation were first approved by the Fed's governing board in 2017. The project then wended its way through several local commissions for approval, at least one of which, the Commission for Fine Arts, included several Trump appointees. The commission pushed for more marble in the second of the two buildings the Fed is renovating, known as 1951 Constitution Avenue, specifically in a mostly glass extension that some of Trump's appointees derided as a "glass box."
Fed staff also pointed to the complication of historic renovations -- both buildings have significant preservation needs. Constructing a new building on an empty site would have been cheaper, they said.
As one example, the staff pointed reporters to where they had excavated beneath the Eccles building to add a floor of mechanical rooms, storage space and some offices. The Fed staff acknowledged such structural additions underground are expensive, but said it was done to avoid adding HVAC equipment and other mechanics on the roof, which is historic.
Trump, who said after his tour that "it feels very good to be back on a construction site," added that opening up a basement is "the most expensive place to build."
The Fed has previously attributed much of the project's cost to underground construction. It is also adding three underground levels of parking for its second building. Initially the central bank proposed building more above ground, but ran into Washington, D.C.'s height restrictions, forcing more underground construction.