AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Tuesday support for U.S. central bank independence remains "very strong" in Congress, pushing back on concerns surfaced in recent news coverage that the hands-off status the Fed largely enjoys may be jeopardized by a second presidency of Donald Trump.
"I'm less worried about that than the sort of things that had been in the press lately might suggest," Powell said in response to a question on central bank independence put to him at a conference in Amsterdam.
Powell did not cite Trump by name but his reference to recent press reports follows a Wall Street Journal story last month that said the former president's allies were drafting proposals that would attempt to erode the Fed's independence if Trump wins this November's presidential election.
The group argues that Trump should be consulted on rate decisions and would have the authority to remove Powell as Fed chair before his term ends in 2026, the Journal report said.
Powell, first appointed to the Fed's Board of Governors by Barack Obama in 2012, was elevated to be the central bank's chair by Trump in 2018, and then the former president publicly soured on him for continuing to raise interest rates. Trump once called Powell an "enemy" and was reported to have discussed whether to try to fire the Fed chief. More recently he has said he would not reappoint Powell should he regain the White House.
For his part, Powell has typically avoided engaging on the matter when asked about it publicly, but more so than his predecessors he has assiduously cultivated relationships with key members of Congress from both parties that helped insulate him from Trump's attacks and threats.
Powell touted those close ties again in his remarks on Tuesday.
"I talk to elected representatives in both political parties in the House and the Senate, and I think there's very strong support on both sides of the aisle, on both sides of Capitol Hill, for an independent Fed," Powell said.
"I think that people do understand that we're just there to do our job on a non-political, nonpartisan basis. Nobody's perfect. Everyone makes mistakes, but the Fed is doing the absolute best we can with the tools that we have and the understanding of the economy that we have. I think that is very broadly understood and supported on Capitol Hill."
(Reporting by Bart Meijer and Toby Sterling in Amsterdam; Writing by Dan Burns in New York; Editing by Franklin Paul and Andrea Ricci)
