Trump wants cheaper debt. The Fed won't give it to him. He claims they have political motives, which is rich coming from a man who spent four years demanding rate cuts like a toddler screaming for chicken nuggets at a Wendy's drive-thru.
The U.S. should be paying much less, he says. Much less than what? Much less than the market demands? Much less than inflation requires? Much less than the laws of mathematics allow? He doesn't specify. He never does. He just points at the number and says it should be smaller, as if interest rates are determined by volume and conviction rather than economic reality.
Retail traders will read this headline and immediately assume Trump knows something they don't. They'll pile into bond futures or rate-sensitive tech stocks or whatever their favorite Discord moderator told them to buy. They'll lose money. They'll blame the Fed. They'll never once consider that complaining about interest rates is not the same thing as having an interest rate policy.
The Fed has political motives, Trump says. Yes. The motive is to not let the dollar turn into a participation trophy. The motive is to prevent inflation from becoming the only number in your portfolio that goes up. The motive is to ignore presidents who think monetary policy is a customer service issue.
You know who else thinks the Fed has political motives? Every president who ever lived. Every single one wanted cheaper money. None of them got it by posting about it. But Trump keeps trying, keeps bemoaning, keeps demanding the universe bend to his preferred interest rate like he's haggling over a golf course appraisal.
Somewhere right now a guy with $847 in Robinhood just opened a leveraged position based on this headline.
Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash
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