The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday left interest rates unchanged despite pressure from President Donald Trump to lower rates and boost economic growth.
The Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed’s policy-making committee, decided to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 2.25 per cent to 2.5 per cent, the central bank said in a statement after concluding a two-day policy meeting, Xinhua reported.
The Fed noted that the labour market “remains strong” and economic activity “rose at a solid rate” since March, while growth of household spending and business fixed investment “slowed” in the first quarter.
The Fed reiterated that it “will be patient” with future adjustments to the federal funds rate in light of global economic and financial developments and “muted inflation pressures”.
The meeting came after Trump on Tuesday again criticised the Fed’s rate increases and urged the central bank to lower interest rates to boost the economy.
“Our Federal Reserve has incessantly lifted interest rates, even though inflation is very low, and instituted a very big dose of quantitative tightening,” Trump tweeted on Tuesday.
“We have the potential to go up like a rocket if we did some lowering of rates, like one point, and some quantitative easing,” he said.
