The president recently said he would appoint two political loyalists to the Fed Board -- Stephen Moore, a Heritage Foundation fellow, and former pizza executive Herman Cain. Senate Republicans, usually reluctant to go against Trump in public, have begun raising questions about the prospect of a Cain nomination.
Growth Forecasts
While Trump has suggested that economic growth below 3 percent is unacceptable, Fed policy makers expect expansion to slow to a more sustainable pace of around 2 percent this year.
Since the meeting, the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow estimate for first- quarter growth has increased to 2.3 percent. Nonfarm payrolls rose by 196,000 jobs in March, indicating the labor market remains broadly healthy following an unexpectedly low reading in February.
Also last month, the Fed announced that the shrinking of the balance sheet -- a policy sometimes called quantitative tightening -- would slow in May and end in September. The minutes showed that officials held a discussion about an operational approach to their regime of ample bank reserves that would involve a “minimum operating level” of bank reserves.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.