沃什获参议院批准出任美联储下任主席，通胀形势加剧之际监管政策引争议

Warsh clinches Senate approval to be Fed’s next chair as inflation intensifies

May 13, 2026 5:06 PM UTC / Reuters

By Nolan D. McCaskill and Ann Saphir

May 13, 2026 5:06 PM UTC Updated 15 mins ago

Kevin Warsh, U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to be next chair of the Federal Reserve, attends a Senate Banking Committee confirmation hearing to testify, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 21, 2026. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

• Summary
• Companies

• Warsh to take Fed chair role as rising inflation ignites rate-hike debate
• Producer prices rose 6% in April, stoking concern about broadening price pressures
• Trump picked Warsh with the expectation he would cut rates
• Warsh confirmation almost completely along partisan lines

WASHINGTON, May 13 (Reuters) – The U.S. ​Senate on Wednesday approved Kevin Warsh as chair of the Federal Reserve, putting the 56-year-old lawyer and financier at the helm as the U.S. central bank ‌grapples with intensifying inflation that may make it hard to push through the interest-rate cuts that President Donald Trump has demanded.

The vote was 54-45 in the most-partisan-ever U.S. Senate confirmation of a Fed chair. A single Democrat, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, voted with the Republican majority.

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His swearing-in to the four-year Fed chair term and a concurrent 14-year term as a Fed governor approved by the Senate on Tuesday awaits final White House signatures on paperwork sent ​by the Senate. The White House did not respond to questions about when Trump would complete the final paperwork or the timing of his swearing in.

Warsh will take the ​leadership baton from Fed Chair Jerome Powell, whose term ends on Friday but who will remain a Fed governor. Fed Governor Stephen Miran, currently ⁠the central bank’s biggest advocate of rate cuts, will vacate his spot on the board to make room for Warsh.

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Expected to be in place to chair the Fed’s next meeting June ​16 to 17, Warsh joins a central bank whose policymakers are engaged in a vigorous debate on the direction of interest rates.

Several central bankers have argued that the Fed should consider rate hikes, concerned that inflation ​is broadening even beyond the impact of the Trump administration’s tariffs and the spike in oil prices from the Iran war.

An index of producer prices, a key component of overall inflation, jumped 6% in April from a year earlier, the Labor Department reported on Wednesday. That’s the fastest pace since December 2022 when the Fed was battling a 40-year record surge in prices with sharp rate hikes.

Analysts expect the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index ​to have risen 3.8% last month, moving further from the Fed’s target of 2%.

Producer prices breakdown

In the run-up to his first meeting, Warsh may have to navigate a divided group of policymakers with growing ​support for more hawkish language indicating that a rate increase is as likely as a rate cut in coming months. At least five of the Fed’s 19 policymakers have said they wanted that change as ‌of April.

Also in ⁠June, Fed policymakers are scheduled to release fresh rate-path forecasts. March’s projections for a single rate cut this year look increasingly stale as the unemployment rate hovers around 4.3%, indicating the labor market may not need the support of a rate cut. However, inflation has continued to gain steam: a government report on Tuesday showed consumer prices rose in April at the fastest pace in three years.

Financial markets now expect no change to the Fed’s 3.5%-3.75% policy rate target this year, with a rate hike as soon as January.

Warsh is no stranger to discord within the Fed. As a ​Fed governor during Ben Bernanke’s tenure as chair, ​he expressed reservations about policy, though he ⁠left the Board in 2011 before ever casting a dissenting vote.

At his confirmation hearing he told senators he welcomes a “family fight” at the Fed as policymakers hammer out the right monetary policy response to economic conditions.

Unlike during Warsh’s first stint at the Fed, the current president has been badgering ​the central bank for rate cuts. Trump has also undertaken what Powell calls a “series of legal attacks” on the central bank, including ​an attempt to fire Fed ⁠Governor Lisa Cook last year. Trump’s Department of Justice also launched a criminal investigation of Powell which it has dropped for now but has left the door open to reviving.

Powell and others have said those attacks threaten the Fed’s ability to set interest rates according to economic fundamentals. Powell has opted to buck tradition and stay on at the Fed beyond the end of his chair term, at least until ⁠the DOJ ​probe is definitively closed.

Warsh also faces a different inflation backdrop than he did the last time he was a ​Fed governor. Then, inflation was mostly running below the Fed’s 2% target, yet Warsh argued that policymakers should tighten financial conditions with a smaller balance sheet.

Trump expects Warsh to advocate for lower rates, and Warsh had expressed support for Trump’s ​view. Still, he told senators at his confirmation hearing last month that he had not made any promises.

Reporting by Howard Schneider, Nolan McCaskill, Ann Saphir, Nandita Bose; Editing by David Gregorio

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