Torres and Krishnamoorthi Warn Trump’s Targeting of Fed Chair Powell Undermines U.S. Economic Power and Strengthens CCP’s Global Hand

Committee Member Ritchie Torres (D-NY) of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) issued the following statement condemning President Trump’s targeting of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and warning that political interference in the Federal Reserve erodes U.S. economic credibility, unsettles global markets, and advances the Chinese Communist Party’s strategic interests:

“Congress established the Federal Reserve to serve the American people as an independent institution, free from the pressures of Presidents and politicians. President Trump’s targeting of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is a flagrant attack on that independence. This probe has jolted financial markets and fueled global doubts about the future of the Federal Reserve’s independence and U.S. economic credibility.

America’s financial system is the envy of the world, and its credibility is a core source of national power. Trump’s attempt to coerce an independent central bank by threatening legal action takes a page from the Chinese Communist Party’s playbook. China’s Communist Party exerts direct control over its central bank, manipulating interest rates to prop up corporations at the expense of wage-earners.

Beijing has long claimed the U.S. system is chaotic and unreliable, and actions like this only reinforce that narrative while pushing global capital away from American markets. Economic credibility is strategic power, and authoritarian regimes benefit when faith in American governance erodes. We cannot undermine the independence of the world’s most important central bank nor cede leadership in global finance to China for the sake of the President’s petty political grievances.”