US President Donald Trump has stepped up his attacks on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell at a time when the Supreme Court is considering a case that could make it easier for the President to fire him.

The developments — taking place against a backdrop of wider turmoil in the economy and financial markets due to Trump’s tariff assault — have resulted in growing differences between the White House and the Fed.

In comments at the White House on Thursday, Trump suggested he has the power to remove Powell and criticised him for not aggressively cutting interest rates.
“If I want him out, he’ll be out of there real fast, believe me,” Trump said. “I’m not happy with him.”
In contrast, the relationship between the government and the Reserve Bank of India has been much smoother in recent years and the two
sides have been taking co-ordinated steps.

The trigger behind the Powell-Trump difference is the US President’s repeated pitch for monetary easing, which was swatted away by Powell when he said at a recent event in Chicago that the Fed’s “independence is very widely understood and supported in Washington and in Congress where it really matters.” Powell also said the Fed’s credibility in managing monetary policy is considered important not just to the US economy, but across global markets.
Most economists worry that an assault on the Fed’s longstanding independence from politics would further disrupt markets and add to the uncertainty enveloping the economy.
Powell says the law establishing the Fed does not allow a President to fire a chair except for cause. There is some complication in that Powell was separately appointed as a member of the Fed’s board of governors, and then elevated to the position of chair — by Trump, in 2017.
Should Trump try to fire Powell anyway, the ensuing fight would almost certainly end up at the Supreme Court.