Trump and Powell bicker over Fed building renovations as president ratchets up pressure campaign in construction site visit

After months of criticism of the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, President Donald Trump took the battle to the front door of the Federal Reserve on Thursday, as he publicly photographed the Central Bank President due to the amplification costs of a long -term construction project. Powell, which challenges the last president’s price as incorrect.

When wearing hard hats and dark faces, which stand in the middle of the construction project, Trump addressed the heels of the cameras. Trump has accused the renewal will cost $ 3.1 billion, which is much higher than the number of $ 2.5 billion. Powell, standing beside him, shook his head.

After looking at a paper presented by Trump, the President of the Federal Reserve said that the president included the cost of renewing a separate technical bank building, known as the Martin building, which ended five years ago.

The visit represented a significant increase in the President’s pressure on Powell to reduce borrowing costs, which Trump says will accelerate economic growth and reduce borrowing costs of the government. Presidents rarely visit the Federal Reserve offices, although they are a few buildings from the White House, an example of the independence of the central bank from daily policy.

“We have to decrease interest rates,” Trump said later after a short tour. He addresses the cameras this time without Powell. “People are largely unable to buy homes.”

Trump’s hope is likely to be disappointed next week, however, when federal reserve officials meet to determine his next steps in interest rates. Powell and other officials indicated that they are likely to maintain their main rate unchanged at about 4.3 %. However, economists and Wall Street expect the Federal Reserve to start lowering prices in September.

Trump turned back slightly from some of his recent threats to shoot Powell before his term on May 26. When asked whether the increasing costs of renewing the Federal Reserve, which was estimated at 2022, cost $ 1.9 billion, it was a “fire -can crime,” Trump said, “I do not want to put this in this category.”

“To do this is a big step, and I don’t think this is necessary,” Trump added. “I just want to see one thing happens, very simple: interest rates drop.”

The Federal Reserve allowed journalists to roam the building before Trump’s visit, which, in his real estate career, has boasted about his luxurious spending on the architectural residence that gave a golden taste that resembles Versailles to his buildings.

Journalists get a rare tour of the renewal of the Federal Reserve
On Thursday, journalists were wounded through cement mixers, front signs, and plastic tubes, where they obtained a close vision of the active construction site, which includes the headquarters of the historic Federal Reserve, known as the Marriner S. Eccles, and a second building via 20 Street in Washington.

Federal Reserve employees, who refused to determine their identity, said that security requirements, high costs of materials and definitions, and the need to comply with historical conservation measures led to an increase in the cost of the project, which was placed in the budget in 2022 at $ 1.9 billion.

The employees referred to new windows resistant to the explosion and seismic walls that were necessary to comply with the modern construction rules and security standards set by the Ministry of Internal Security. Federal reserve staff said at the highest level of security, including something called “gradual collapse”, where the building parts will occur only if it is struck with explosives.

The sensitivity of the president’s suspended visit to the Federal Reserve employees was high during the tour. Correspondents were introduced in a small room outside the Federal Reserve Hall, where 19 officials meet eight times a year to decide whether short -term interest rates will be changed. The room, which will have a security booth, in the form of an oval, and a “oval office” books on the walls of plywood.

The Federal Reserve employees reduced the engraving people as a joke. When the correspondents returned to the room later, it was drawn.

During the tour, federal reserve staff also showed the elevator column that Congress criticism said was “for the dignitaries” only. Powell has since said that he will be open to all federal reserve staff. Renewal includes an extension of 18 inches (45 cm) with the elevator to a slightly elevated area that can now be accessed only with steps or slope. The employees said that the planning document stated that the elevator would only be for the seven federal governors and amending them later.

The renovations were working for a while
The renewal plans were approved for the first time by the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank in 2017. Then the project run on its way through many local committees for approval, at least one, the Fine Arts Committee, which included many appointed Trump. The committee prompted more marble in the second of the buildings that the Federal Reserve is renewed, known as the 1951 Constitution Street, specifically in a glass extension often from some of the appointed from Trump as a “glass box”.

Federal reserve staff also said that the definitions and inflationary increases in the prices of building materials have increased costs. In 2018, Trump imposed a 25 % duty on steel and 10 % on aluminum. He increased them this year to 50 %. Steel prices have increased by about 60 % since the approval of the plans, while the costs of building materials in general rise by about 50 %, according to government data.

Federal reserve staff also referred to the complications of historical renovations – both buildings have significant conservation needs. They said that building a new building on an empty site would be cheaper.

For example, the employees referred to the correspondents to where they were dug under the Eccles building to add a floor of mechanical rooms, storage space and some offices. The Federal Reserve employees admitted that these underground structural additions are expensive, but they said that the addition of HVAC and other mechanics on the surface, which is historical.

The Federal Reserve has already attributed a lot of project cost to underground construction. It also adds three underground levels of parking lots to the second building. Initially, the central bank suggested a building above the ground, but it ran to Washington, raising restrictions in Washington, DC, forcing more underground construction.