Trump Revives Call For Interest Rate Cuts, Inflation Data Makes That Unlikely

After President Donald Trump walked back a previous "demand" for interest rate cuts, he's made a new call for them but government data released minutes later appears to make that unlikely to happen in the near term.

On Wednesday morning, Trump posted a new call for rate cuts.

"Interest Rates should be lowered, something which would go hand in hand with upcoming Tariffs!!! Lets Rock and Roll, America!!!" Trump posted on his Truth Social account.

Shortly after he was inaugurated, Trump took aim at the Federal Reserve during a video address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

"I'll demand that interest rates drop immediately. And likewise, they should be dropping all over the world," Trump said. "I'm also going to ask Saudi Arabia and OPEC to bring down the cost of oil."

Earlier this month, Trump seemed to flip-flop on the topic.

When a reporter asked Trump to react to the Federal Reserve holding interest rates steady at its last policy meeting he said, "I'm not surprised. Holding the rates at this point was the right thing to do."

And last week, Trump's Treasury Secretary also claimed that Trump wasn't concerned about interest rates.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the president was actually focused on 10-year Treasury yields rather than the Federal Reserve's actions on short-term interest rates,

"He and I are focused on the 10-year Treasury," Bessent said in an interview with Fox Business. "He wants lower rates. He is not calling for the Fed to lower rates."

Now it appears Trump is back to calling for rate cuts.

They appear less likely to happen after a January inflation report came in much hotter than expected. The Consumer Price Index released on Wednesday showed prices jumped 0.5% when analysts had expected a 0.3% rise.

Rising inflation makes the Federal Reserve less likely to cut rates as they want the inflation rate to move down to 2%.

Trump went back on Truth Social to blame former president Joe Biden for the inflation report.

"BIDEN INFLATION UP!" he posted.