- JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon was unfazed by President Trump’s attempts to pressure the Federal Open Market Committee, emphasizing that while every president prefers low interest rates, the White House has little actual control over them. He noted that while Trump might push for lower short-term rates, long-term rates are dictated by global market forces.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon sees little surprise in President Trump’s public pressure on Federal Open Market Committee Chairman Jerome Powell, noting that every president prefers an environment of low interest rates to encourage economic growth.
However, Dimon aligns with other market commentators in assessing the White House’s actual influence over interest rates, which he describes as minimal.
“I think he’s right to be very pro-growth because good growth is not inflationary,” Dimon told Stanford Graduate School of Business in an interview released at the weekend. “It’s good for the people, it’s good for all different income classes, and I think he’s right to be for deregulation. Not getting rid of regulation… just bureaucracy like you’ve never seen before.
“It’s unbelievable and we crippled our nation with it…and we should recognize that.”
The Wall Street veteran continued: “Everyone wants low inflation—name me a president ever who said ‘Give me higher interest rates.’ Doesn’t happen. And he can’t control it—he can jawbone, but he can’t control it.”
Dimon was responding to a question about President Trump’s repeated desire to lower prices and interest rates—neither of which is within the power of the Oval Office.
President Trump and his vice president, JD Vance, began their campaign trail arguing that politicians should hold the Fed more closely accountable for their decisions on the base rate.
This would contradict long-established best practices for central banks, many of which have been legally mandated (federally, in the case of the FOMC) to maintain a distance from the government.
This is so that interest rates, a major lever of the economy impacting everything from mortgage rates to the bond market to grocery prices, are not subject to the whims of politicians rotating in and out of public office.
Importance of central bank independence
History provides examples of when this has been ignored in the past: In the 1970s, when President Richard Nixon was seeking reelection, he said of then Fed Chairman Arthur Burns, “I respect his independence. However, I hope that independently he will conclude that my views are the ones that should be followed.”
Chairman Burns proceeded to follow the not-so-subtle hint, which in turn led to a period of stagflation.
This is a fact Powell—appointed to his role by President Trump in his first administration—is well aware of.
Powell has continually shut down questions about how President Trump might interfere with the work of the FOMC, even going as far to push back that the White House cannot legally fire him from the role.
Dimon hedged that President Trump “may” get the Fed to lower short-term interest rates, but added the 10-year rates are completely out of reach.
“That’s actually controlled by the world—you know, the buyers and sellers of the world. He can try to jawbone that, it will not work. That will actually be based on supply and demand of U.S. Dollars, which includes…long-term, duration, foreign buyers, internal buyers, investment buyers, inflation expectations—the whole shebang.”
While Trump’s tariff policy is similarly upsetting markets in the immediate term, Dimon, who was paid $39 million for his work in 2024, has a more balanced outlook.
“Tariffs themselves, depends how you use it. If they’re small, they’re modest…[used] as a tool or kind of a weapon to do—in some cases—good stuff it’s very modestly inflationary, I mean you’re talking about 0.1% or 0.2%,” Dimon explained.
“Now if you put 25% tariffs on all imports, that’s a lot more. That could be, in my view, quite recessionary and inflationary.”