At a moment of political polarization and a White House distancing itself from "globalization," Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh's choice of foreign central bankers and Obama-era appointees on his Fed reform task forces has gotten strong early reviews for relying heavily on expertise even as other independent U.S. agencies are being stripped of it.
The Fed in recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings was exempted from otherwise blanket authority granted to President Donald Trump to fire members of independent agencies that for nearly a century had been insulated from removal because of policy or other disagreements, freeing Warsh from the day-to-day pressure of threatened firing he might otherwise be under for angering Trump or his base. Over a week where Trump fired members of the independent Election Assistance Commission and held combative talks with other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Warsh announced he had tapped 15 Fed outsiders, five of them foreign-born, including the former heads of the central banks of Brazil, England and India, and two of them former appointees to high-level jobs by President Barack Obama, to lead his centerpiece reform effort.
