Trump says US interest rates should be at least two to three points lower
(Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that interest rates in the country should be lowered by at least two to three percentage points, ahead of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's testimony before Congress.
"We should be at least two to three points lower...if things later change to the negative, increase the Rate," Trump said in a Truth Social post.
Powell "will be in Congress today in order to explain, among other things, why he is refusing to lower the Rate," Trump added.
Powell is set to testify in Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday, following a week of pointed remarks from Trump demanding rate cuts and raising concerns on Wall Street over the future direction of the Fed when Powell's term ends next May.
Last week, the Fed held rates steady in the 4.25%-4.50% range and penciled in two cuts by end of 2025. However, Powell said he expected "meaningful" inflation ahead as consumers pay more for goods due to the Trump administration's planned import tariffs.
Trump's comments on interest rates come only hours after he announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran.
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Washington Post
16 minutes ago
- Washington Post
The politics of abortion have changed. Here's how.
Good morning, Early Birds. Here's hoping we see James Wood in the Home Run Derby. Send tips to earlytips@ Thanks for waking up with us. In today's edition … How abortion politics have changed in three years … An exciting race brewing in New York City … A well-funded, bipartisan anti-Trump political group launches … but first … Here's the latest on Iran. President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran last night on Truth Social. Both sides would finish their operations against each other, then halt hostilities by around midnight Eastern time. 'This is a War that could have gone on for years, and destroyed the entire Middle East, but it didn't, and never will! God bless Israel, God bless Iran, God bless the Middle East, God bless the United States of America, and GOD BLESS THE WORLD!' he wrote. Israel and Iran didn't immediately confirm the ceasefire, leading to some skepticism from Democrats that it would hold. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said there was no agreement for a ceasefire but added that his country didn't plan military strikes after last night if Israel held off. Lawmakers may get some clarity when Congress is briefed today on the intelligence that led to the U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend. Christopher Landau, deputy secretary of state; Steve Feinberg, deputy secretary of defense; Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence; and CIA Director John Ratcliffe are expected to brief lawmakers, two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the briefings, told our colleagues Theodoric Meyer and Marianna Sotomayor. Democrats have been eager to see exactly what — if anything — has changed since March, when Gabbard said the U.S. intelligence community 'continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon' and that the country's supreme leader 'has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.' 'Have they changed their position? Did they get it wrong, and was Israel's intelligence community right? But if not, what in the hell is the president of the United States doing supporting a third country's policy and ignoring our own intelligence?' said Sen. Mark R. Warner (Virginia), the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee. 'Remember, messing with intelligence is how we got ourselves in the Iraq War.' Trump said the U.S. intelligence community's assessment was 'wrong' before launching the strikes, and Gabbard has since said the assessment was in line with Trump's policy. Iran responded to the U.S. strikes with a missile attack yesterday on al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest U.S. base in the Middle East. The Defense Department didn't report any casualties from the attack. The Qatari Defense Ministry said it intercepted the missiles. Trump said on Truth Social that Iran alerted the U.S. ahead of the attack. Iran's theocratic regime felt compelled to respond to the U.S. strikes but is fearful that a larger conflict can threaten its 46-year rule. The Trump administration's official line is that it isn't interested in regime change, but Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio refused to rule it out over the weekend, especially if Iran obtains nuclear weapons. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters yesterday that Trump was not committed to regime change and 'was just simply raising a question.' Where will Trump be today? He's off to The Hague for a NATO summit this morning. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte acknowledged during a news conference yesterday that Iran is top of mind and reiterated the defense bloc's position that Iran should not obtain a nuclear weapon. But he stressed that the summit will be focused on threats to the Atlantic alliance, specifically Russia's war on Ukraine, and funding to address them. There is a conventional wisdom in Washington that abortion, a top issue for Democrats during elections in 2022 and 2024, is no longer the politically potent talking point it once was. The Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization three years ago today was politically seismic. It made abortion a top issue for Democratic-leaning voters overnight, helping the party raise hundreds of millions of dollars across the country, funding scores of ad campaigns about abortion and leading the party to overperform expectations two years into President Joe Biden's term. Then came 2024, when Republicans swept into control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, leading some election postmortems to suggest Democrats focused too much on abortion and not enough on prices and the economy. It's not that simple, said a range of Democrats we spoke to in the lead-up to this anniversary. To Jessica Mackler, the head of Emily's List, which aims to elect women who support abortion rights, elections are never as uncomplicated as one issue over another. 'This has always been a both-and proposition,' Mackler told us, noting that even in 2022, months after the Dobbs decision, there was a flurry of stories about Democrats focusing too much on abortion. 'To me, the imperative in front of us is that we have to both connect with voters on the way in which this recklessness and chaos in Washington is making their lives more difficult. And we also have to be clear in explaining where their Republican opponents are on abortion rights.' 'Abortion really did matter (in 2024),' said Yasmin Radjy, executive director of Swing Left, a liberal grassroots organization. 'But I think we got feedback from voters that while abortion mattered a lot … we weren't reaching voters on other issues that, honestly, were more front of mind for them.' Radjy argued abortion messaging needs to be tailored to various audiences, differentiating between speaking to voters in a state controlled by Democrats that has protected abortion rights versus voters in a state where Republicans have rolled back the protections at the state level. In the immediate aftermath of Dobbs, some states implemented trigger laws that banned or severely restricted the procedure, while others enacted abortion protections through legislation or voter initiatives. Voters in some Republican-controlled states such as Ohio, Kentucky and Kansas also scored wins for abortion rights proponents in the years after Dobbs. In states where laws protecting abortion have not been passed or restrictions are in place, Radjy predicted, the issue will be even more salient in the coming elections. 'It is no longer, 'trust us when we say this is going to be bad.' It is people feeling and experiencing how it impacts people's lives,' Radjy said, noting that recent research has shown voters are often moved by how abortion bans hurt people in their network of friends. 'That is the difference. It is not storytelling about reproductive freedom as an issue. It is storytelling on how these bans and Republican power are harming people.' Abortion is already a key issue in the top two races on the ballot this year. Democrats in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial contests are focusing on abortion rights, and both have plans to mark the anniversary by hitting their opponents on the issue. 'This is the first governor's race in Virginia and New Jersey since Roe v. Wade was overturned, placing abortion access back in the hands of the states,' said Johanna Warshaw, a spokeswoman at the Democratic Governors Association, who cast Republicans Winsome Earle-Sears in Virginia and Jack Ciattarelli in New Jersey as 'deeply out of step with voters on this issue.' Activist Amanda Zurawski agrees: She was galvanized to campaign heavily for Democrats last year after nearly dying from a complication to her pregnancy in Texas. She said she was encouraged by victories on ballot initiatives in states, where voters largely supported access to abortion, and said she would continue speaking out to keep the cause a central tenet for Democrats. 'When people see this affect them personally, that's when they start speaking up and fighting back,' Zurawski, who hasn't ruled out a run for office, told us. 'We saw, and we continue to see, time and again, that when reproductive freedom is on the ballot, it wins.' The House Democratic caucus will vote this morning for the ranking member of the Oversight Committee. It's a role that provides a prominent opportunity to confront members of the Trump administration in public. Four candidates are running: Reps. Stephen F. Lynch of Massachusetts, Kweisi Mfume of Maryland, Robert Garcia of California and Jasmine Crockett of Texas. Lynch, 70, is filling the role in an acting capacity following the death of Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia. He and Mfume, 76, are running on their seniority in the committee. Garcia, 47, and Crockett, 44, assert they represent younger perspectives and have experience using their social media standing to raise awareness of the committee's work. Garcia is seen as the front-runner, having won the endorsement of the House Democrats' steering committee on the first ballot last night. Voters in New York will head to the polls today for primary elections, including a closely watched mayoral race. The campaign — especially the race between the top two candidates, former New York governor Andrew M. Cuomo and New York state Rep. Zohran Mamdani — has all the contours of the broader fight within the Democratic Party: young versus old, liberal versus centrist and establishment versus insurgent. Cuomo, who resigned in disgrace as governor after sexual harassment accusations, has been consistently leading in the polls. Still, there is a belief that Mamdani — buoyed by a go-everywhere media strategy and clever social presence — is closing strong. A recent poll from Marist University found Cuomo leading Mamdani by 12 points in ranked-choice voting. It could be days until we know who actually won the contest, however. A handful of top candidates are running, and New York City's use of ranked-choice voting means voters can choose up to five candidates. If no candidate receives over 50 percent as a first choice, the different rankings come into play. 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Newsweek
16 minutes ago
- Newsweek
The Inflation Time Bomb—Trump's Policies Will Hit Your Wallet Soon
Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the interpretation of facts and data. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. With inflation hovering modestly above 2 percent despite President Donald Trump's aggressive tariff increases and immigration enforcement, some might wonder whether warnings about his policies driving up prices were overblown. They weren't. The inflationary pressures are building beneath the surface, masked by timing, supply chain buffers, and massive corporate stockpiling ahead of policy changes. The time bomb is ticking—and consumers should begin bracing for the explosion. Trump's most disruptive policies didn't begin in earnest until months after his January inauguration. While he announced a 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods in late January, the real escalation came in March when rates jumped to 20 percent, then spiked to 145 percent by April before being partially rolled back. The administration's "Liberation Day" universal tariff on April 2 marked the broadest increase since the 1930s. Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City on June 18, 2025. Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City on June 18, 2025. TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images Immigration enforcement followed a similar pattern. Though raids began in January, the most aggressive workplace operations didn't intensify until late May, when Trump aide Stephen Miller pushed for 3,000 arrests per day—triple the early administration pace. Only recently have we seen dramatic workplace disruptions that at one point caused Trump to pull back on raids of farmers, hotels, and other key industries that rely on immigrants for labor. However, that pause proved to only be a brief reprieve, guaranteeing that the inflationary pressures from this aggressive immigration policy will continue to build. What truly delayed the impact of Trump's most inflationary policy was an unprecedented wave of corporate front-loading in late 2024 and early 2025. Companies rushed to import goods before tariffs took effect, creating exactly the buffer that's now insulating consumers from immediate price shocks. These panic purchases were so intense it caused the U.S. economy to contract 0.3 percent in Q1 despite robust domestic demand. By May, container imports fell 9.7 percent as the stockpiling surge ended and higher tariff rates took hold. By stocking up as they did, companies bought themselves time to ride through a few months of high tariffs without it affecting their bottom line. As Trump's trade war drags on, those Q1 stockpiles dwindle as companies forestall replenishing their inventories in the hope that tariff rates will suddenly come down. Freight bookings for April dropped 41 percent month-over-month as businesses adopted this "wait and see" approach. The gap between inventory levels and inventory costs has expanded to the third highest in the index's history. In essence, it is becoming increasingly expensive to store inventory while simultaneously becoming more expensive to replace it. The Federal Reserve's stance reveals perhaps the clearest evidence that policymakers anticipate the inflationary surge ahead. Despite months of consistently lower inflation readings and unprecedented presidential pressure to cut rates, Fed officials have held interest rates steady—a decision that only makes sense if they're bracing for future price pressures. By keeping rates elevated despite political pressure and recent good inflation data, the Fed is acknowledging their belief that current price stability is temporary. They're positioning for the inflationary impact they know is coming rather than reacting to the deceptively calm present. The ingredients for an inflationary surge are now in place: depleted inventory buffers, supply chain disruptions in essential industries, elevated tariffs on a vast array of goods, and increasingly fragile inflation expectations. When companies exhaust their stockpiles and face the choice between absorbing higher costs or passing them to consumers, the answer isn't just predictable, it is a necessary function of the corporate mandate to maximize shareholder value. Food prices are particularly vulnerable. With agricultural raids creating labor shortages during peak growing season and tariffs raising input costs, the sector faces a perfect storm. The lag between policy implementation and consumer impact is ending. Trump's own acknowledgment of economic "harm" from his policies—and his scramble to dial them back—suggests the administration has already seen internal projections of what's coming. The question isn't whether Trump's policies will drive inflation, but when Americans will feel it at the grocery store. The time bomb is real, and the fuse is shortening. Nicholas Creel is an associate professor of business law at Georgia College & State University. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
CNN
17 minutes ago
- CNN
Trump takes his go-it-alone approach to NATO summit after announcing Israel-Iran ceasefire
When President Donald Trump travels here Tuesday for a consequential summit of NATO leaders, he'll arrive toting a freshly brokered ceasefire he hopes can prove to his skeptics — including at the conference — that he is a peacemaker at heart. The arrangement between Israel and Iran came after an intensive afternoon of diplomacy at the White House, but hours after it was set to take effect, Israel accused Iran of firing several missiles and vowed to respond 'with force.' Tehran denied violating the truce. Trump hopes the ceasefire — if it holds — will act as vindication for the US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, which drew a mixed response from leaders here in Europe, who feared becoming embroiled in a wider war. In the end, the deal Trump announced Monday was brokered with the help of Qatar, and appeared to leave the Europeans on the sidelines. White House officials said the diplomatic arrangement would not have been possible had Trump not ordered the bombing run over the weekend. 'Congratulations to everyone!' Trump posted on his Truth Social platform Monday evening as he revealed the parameters of what he called the end of the '12 Day War.' At least in Trump's mind, the deal could bolster his stature as a global deal maker at a moment when his ability to strike peace agreements is being tested. As he steps back onto the world stage, the president appears eager to demonstrate his ability to bring warring parties to the table — even if he hasn't yet been able to resolve the European conflict in the background of this week's gathering. This week's Hague summit had been carefully planned over months to avoid angering Trump and paper over the significant differences that remain between Europe and the United States on how to manage the war in Ukraine. The centerpiece is a short and focused final statement — designed to avoid any disputes over language — that will formalize a new plan to raise annual military spending targets to the figure Trump had demanded: 5% of GDP. (Trump, however, told reporters on Friday that the US shouldn't have to meet that target.) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will have a seat at a pre-summit dinner on Tuesday evening, which Trump is expected to attend. But the Ukrainian leader won't participate in the one-day summit on Wednesday, underscoring his stalled ambitions for his country to join NATO — an outcome Trump has ruled out. Already, divisions between Trump and European leaders over Ukraine had threatened to foil attempts by NATO to signal a unified front to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump has appeared reluctant to apply new sanctions on Moscow, even as his peacemaking efforts have stalled, and so far hasn't approved any new military assistance to Ukraine. And over the weekend, European officials privately fretted Trump would decide to cancel his trip to the NATO summit altogether, afraid he'd deem it a needless exercise that would take him away from Middle East consolations in Washington, according to one western official. White House officials had also weighed whether to still attend amid the Middle East conflagration. But on Monday, after it appeared both Israel and Iran had agreed to a ceasefire, the president determined to go ahead, carrying with him the freshly brokered agreement after an extraordinary day of diplomacy at the White House. In the past, a US president who just conducted a major military operation, followed by arranging a pause in fighting, might have relished an opportunity to consult his European counterparts in person to attempt coalition building. But Trump's approach appears less collaborative and more go-it-alone. Even before he gave the go-ahead to launch strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities, Trump openly dismissed European efforts at brokering a diplomatic resolution to the conflict. 'Iran doesn't want to speak to Europe, they want to speak to us,' Trump told reporters Friday, hours before US stealth jets took off on a bombing run in Iran. 'Europe is not going to be able to help on this one.' A few days beforehand, he departed early from the Group of 7 summit in Canada rather than remaining at the mountainside gathering to strategize on Iran with leaders whose own countries could have become embroiled in the widening conflict. The president's solitary approach has hardly come as a surprise to European leaders, who found themselves sidelined in the lead-up to the US strikes. Trump made clear over the weekend he believed only the US had any real standing to intervene, and declared afterwards, 'only American weapons could do what has been done.' Trump views multilateral organizations like the G7 and NATO skeptically, believing instead that direct interactions between countries is a more fruitful approach to world affairs. He has previously written off NATO as an attempt to wring resources from the United States to protect nations on the other side of an ocean. At a 2018 NATO summit during his first presidency, he left fellow leaders shaken when he said during a closed-door meeting he would considering doing his 'own thing' if they didn't significantly boost their defense spending. Trump's loud calls for increased investment in defense among NATO members have yielded results. More countries now meet the alliance's threshold than they did when he first entered office in 2017. But he has continued to insist it's not enough, particularly as the war in Ukraine rages. Now, however, the recent tensions in the Middle East may overshadow the war playing out in Europe.
