Trump likely to pick Powell for Fed
Centrist inclined to continue current strategy
President Trump is likely to nominate Federal Reserve Gov. Jerome Powell as the next chairman of the central bank, a senior administration official said Monday.
Powell is a Republican centrist who appears inclined to continue the Fed’s strategy of gradual interest rate hikes but may also be open to easing some regulations on banks.
Trump hasn’t made a final decision and could change his mind.
The senior administration official asked not to be named since a decision hasn’t been announced. An announcement is scheduled for Thursday, the official said.
Powell would represent a middleground pick for Trump, who is also considering current Democratic Fed Chair Janet Yellen as well as Stanford University economist John Taylor and former Fed Gov. Kevin Warsh.
The latter two have supported sharper rate increases to ward off inflation and are favored by many Re- publicans in Congress.
Powell, 64, has consistently backed Yellen’s plan to lift rates slowly to head off a potential surge in inflation without disrupting an economic recovery that remains fragile by some measures. He also supports Yellen’s blueprint for gradually shrinking the Fed’s $4.5 trillion asset portfolio over the next several years, an initiative that’s expected to gradually push up long-term rates.
Powell, however, has indicated he could be more receptive to loosening some of the banking regulations adopted by the Fed since the 2008 financial crisis. Trump has suggested that higher capital requirements are discouraging more bank lending, for example.
If named by Trump and confirmed by the Senate, Powell would be the first Fed chairman in nearly 30 years not to have a Ph.D. in economics. Powell, who joined the Fed’s board of governors in 2012 to fill an unexpired term, is a lawyer who served as assistant secretary and undersecretary of the Treasury under President George H.W. Bush and was a partner at The Carlyle Group, an investment firm.