Trump criticism 'doesn't affect doing our job at all': Powell

WASHINGTON

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that U.S. President Donald Trump's vocal criticism of the central bank's interest rate choices has no impact on their decision making.

Powell told reporters the repeated critiques by Trump, who has called for rate cuts to boost the economy, "doesn't affect doing our job at all."

"We are always going to consider only the economic data, the outlook, the balance of risks, and that's it. That's all we are going to consider."

Fed on May 7 announced another pause in rate cuts and warned of higher risks to its inflation and unemployment goals in a likely reference to Trump's tariff rollout.

Policymakers voted unanimously to hold the U.S. central bank's key lending rate at between 4.25 percent and 4.5 percent, the Fed said in a statement.

Speaking to reporters in Washington after the decision was published, Powell said there was "a great deal of uncertainty" about where the Trump administration's tariff policies will end up.

Many analysts have warned that the administration's actions will likely push up inflation and unemployment while slowing growth, at least in the short run.

That could complicate the path towards rate cuts for the Fed, which has a dual mandate to act independently of political pressure to keep inflation at two percent over the longer term, and the unemployment rate as low as possible.