WASHINGTON, United States: The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised interest rates for the first time since 2023, defying President Donald Trump\u2019s demand for cuts, as central bank chief Kevin Warsh stressed the need to combat inflation that has been \u201ctoo high\u201d for \u201ctoo long.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Fed\u2019s Federal Open Market Committee voted unanimously to raise rates by 25 basis points to between 3.75 and 4.00 percent, saying the rate hike would support a \u201ctimelier return\u201d to its two-percent target for inflation.<\/p>\n
Warsh, appointed by Trump, said the decision was a \u201cserious\u201d one, but needed to be taken.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plain fact is that inflation is too high, and has been for too long,\u201d he told a press conference.<\/p>\n
And Wednesday\u2019s rate hike may not be the last \u2014 the vast majority of Fed policymakers indicated that at least one more rate hike was likely necessary before the end of the year, according to their Summary of Economic Projections.<\/p>\n
US households and businesses have been battered by years of higher-than-target inflation, and prices have surged in the wake of Trump\u2019s war on Iran, his signature tariff policies and the ongoing AI boom.<\/p>\n
Trump has launched an unprecedented assault on the Fed\u2019s independence since taking office, attempting to fire a Fed Governor and launching a criminal probe against Warsh\u2019s predecessor in his quest for lower rates to spur economic activity.<\/p>\n
The president\u2019s Republican Party faces a stern test in upcoming midterm elections, with rival Democrats seeking to wrest control of both houses of Congress and economic issues front-and-center for voters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON, United States: The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday raised interest rates for the first time since 2023, defying President Donald Trump\u2019s demand for cuts, as central bank chief Kevin Warsh stressed the need to combat inflation that has been \u201ctoo high\u201d for \u201ctoo long.\u201d The Fed\u2019s Federal Open Market Committee voted unanimously to raise …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":103059,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103047"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103060,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103047\/revisions\/103060"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}