US treasury secretary Scott Bessent has said the Federal Reserve is and should be independent but that it had “made a lot of mistakes”, as he defended Donald Trump’s right to fire the central bank governor Lisa Cook.
The president has criticised the Fed and its chair, Jerome Powell, for months for not lowering interest rates. Independent central banks are widely seen as crucial to a stable global financial system. Bessent also rejected the idea that markets were disturbed by the Trump administration’s actions. “S&P’s at a new high and bond yields are fine, so we haven’t seen anything yet,” he said.
