A second Trump administration might be very different from the first, and that includes how the president treats the Fed. Donald Trump complained a lot about the US Federal Reserve when he was president, jawboning for lower interest rates and questioning its competence. Yet at the end of the day the Fed retained its independence and credibility. Now all that is in danger.
Trump advisers have been drafting plans to limit significantly the operating autonomy of the Fed. The Trump campaign has disavowed these plans, but the general ideas have been spreading in Republican circles, as evidenced by the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 report. Trump himself has called for a weaker dollar policy, which could not be carried out without some degree of Fed cooperation. As a former businessman and real-estate developer, Trump seems to care most about interest rates, banking and currencies.