U.S. cost-effective growth would be much stronger had the Federal Reserve stopped raising rates sooner, President Donald Trump implied in an interview that aired Friday.
“If we didn’t have somebody raising interest rates and do quantitative tightening we would own been over 4 [percent] instead of at 3.1 [percent]” in terms of economic growth, Trump told Fox Occupation. “The world is slowing, but we’re not slowing.”
Trump’s comments come after the Federal Reserve kept interest rates consistent on Wednesday and lowered its outlook for rate hikes for 2019 to zero. The Fed also downgraded its economic outlook for 2019. This has been a informative pivot for the central bank in a matter of months.
Trump was critical of the Fed for raising rates four times last year. In October, he dialed the Fed “crazy” for tightening monetary policy at that rate.
The U.S. economy expanded by 3.1 percent in 2018, and by 2.6 percent in the fourth domicile of last year.
A CNBC survey found the U.S. economy is expected to grow by just 2.3 percent in 2019.
“I hope I didn’t effect them, frankly,” Trump told Fox Business. “But it doesn’t matter, I don’t care if I influenced them or not. One thing is, I was right. We inclination have been over 4 [percent] if they didn’t do all the interest rate hikes.”
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