President Donald Trump is set to visit the Federal Reserve headquarters in Washington on Thursday, just a week after suggesting that Fed Chair Jerome Powell could be dismissed over the ballooning cost of renovating two of the central bank’s buildings.
Trump has repeatedly expressed frustration with Powell, particularly over his decision to keep the Fed’s key short-term interest rate at 4.3% throughout this year.
While Powell argues the Fed is monitoring how Trump’s broad tariffs on imports might impact inflation, the president has urged for interest rate cuts to boost economic activity and lower federal borrowing costs.
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At the center of the latest dispute is a major renovation of the Fed’s main building and a nearby facility. With construction extending underground and material costs surging following high inflation in 2021 and 2022, the project’s estimated price tag has soared from $1.9 billion to roughly $2.5 billion.
Trump, speaking last week, criticized the renovation’s cost, calling it “disgraceful,” and said the scale of the spending could justify Powell’s removal. “When you spend $2.5 billion on, really, a renovation, I think it’s really disgraceful,” he remarked.
However, any move to fire Powell would raise serious concerns about the independence of the Federal Reserve—an institution whose autonomy is widely supported by economists and financial markets.