Trump set to explode if his man does his job

September 15, 2026 — 11:59am

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“Fed Week” has started with a bang, with the world’s benchmark interest rate breaking through a key threshold and oil prices surging solidly above $US100 ($140) a barrel again.

When the members of the Federal Reserve Board’s Open Market Committee, which begins its two-day meeting on Monday afternoon (Washington time), sit down to decide whether to lift their policy rate, they’ll also have to factor in the hotter-than-expected inflation data from late last week.

Financial markets have no doubt what they’ll decide: they’ve priced in a 25-basis point cut at this meeting and at least two more, and perhaps three, similar moves between now and June next year. The probability of a rate rise at this meeting is priced at about 90 per cent.

If the Fed does as the markets expect and raises the federal funds rate for the first time since July 2023, when the central bank was still dealing with the inflation shock generated by the post-pandemic disruptions to global supply chains, it will be on a collision course with the Trump White House.

At the weekend, Donald Trump again said the US should have the lowest interest rates in the world and again threatened to cut off trade with countries which have a trade surplus with the US if the Fed didn’t lower US rates. (Even though ending trade with most of America’s trading partners would help lower their interest rates, and would be more likely to lift the US inflation rate and interest rates than lower them).

Trump’s ‘top bond salesman’ is getting a reality check

Stephen BartholomeuszSenior business columnist

Senior business columnist

Kevin Warsh, handpicked by Trump as chair of the Fed, is in an awkward position, partly of Trump’s making, but compounded by his own decisions.

Trump’s trade wars and his war in the Middle East have bled into the inflation rate and the cost of living for American households.

Last week’s inflation numbers showed a rise in headline inflation of 40 basis points........

© The Age