2026-05-25T10:03:11.524Z / 路透社
华盛顿，5月25日（路透社）——美国前联邦储备委员会主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔曾是唐纳德·特朗普总统的绝佳替罪羊，从高按揭利率到经济增长步伐，所有问题都能归咎于他。
但随着新任主席凯文·沃什正式就任美国央行行长，特朗普对美国经济政策制定高层的全盘掌控已尘埃落定，政治态势也随之改变。此前特朗普可以声称，鲍威尔是其首届政府时期由时任财政部长斯蒂芬·姆努钦等顾问强加给他的人选，而沃什则是特朗普亲自提名的，总统将为其履职成果全权负责。
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仿佛是为了强调此次任命的重要性，特朗普于周五在白宫为沃什主持了宣誓就职仪式，内阁部长、最高法院大法官和白宫高级顾问悉数到场，气氛如同鼓劲集会。特朗普在长篇致辞中表示，他希望沃什“按自己的方式行事，出色完成工作”。
“凯文清楚，经济繁荣是件好事……我们希望经济繁荣……我们不希望看到经济受到压制，”特朗普说道。
按党派划分的消费者信心指数
中期选举面临高风险
特朗普曾以降低物价、解决美国家庭更大规模的“负担能力”问题为竞选承诺，并成功连任第二届总统，但如今他在经济议题上的支持率已大幅下滑。
就在沃什宣誓就职约90分钟前公布的一份消费者信心指数显示，美国民众整体情绪低迷。其中，作为即将到来的国会中期选举关键投票群体的独立选民对经济的信心，甚至共和党人的信心都跌至特朗普第二届任期以来的最低点。
30年期住宅抵押贷款利率已回升至6.5%以上，达到九个月来的高位，持续给本就疲软的房地产市场施加压力。尽管特朗普在竞选期间承诺，从总统任期“第一天”起就会降低物价，但总体价格在他任内仍持续上涨：自2025年3月以来，美联储用于设定2%通胀目标的通胀指标已从年率2.3%升至3.5%。
截至周五，美国平均每加仑汽油价格为4.55美元，而特朗普在2月底发动对伊朗袭击前，这一价格还不到3美元。
汽油价格走势
目前尚不清楚沃什担任美联储主席头几个月的表现将如何影响特朗普所在共和党在中期选举中的选情，且这其中充满了潜在的风险。
高通胀从来都不利于面临选民担忧钱包问题的在任政党，但对抗通胀往往需要采取强硬措施，通常表现为加息，而这同样鲜有民众欢迎——特朗普自然也不会乐见其成。
此外，美联储仍是一个松散的机构，新主席需要逐步建立其权威——与此同时，全球都在寻找特朗普施加影响力的证据。
“对于那些与鲍威尔毫无关系的问题，鲍威尔曾是特朗普非常出色的替罪羊，”保守派智库“推进美国自由”负责经济政策研究的理查德·斯特恩说道。如今“这将是特朗普的经济……所有人都担心的物价上涨、负担能力问题，可能多年都不会消失，很多年，也许……而这与特朗普将要做或能做的任何事情都无关，也与沃什将要做的任何事情都无关。”
现年56岁的沃什是一名律师兼金融家，2006年至2011年曾任美联储理事。此后他一直在为重返美联储主席一职铺路。他的职业导师包括知名货币主义经济学家米尔顿·弗里德曼和前国务卿乔治·舒尔茨，而他与华尔街巨头斯坦利·德鲁肯米勒合作的经历，让他凭借妻子在雅诗兰黛化妆品帝国的股份之外的资产积累了巨额财富。
但最终是他与特朗普的社会和政治联系为他敲定了职位，特朗普曾对2017年没有提名沃什而选择鲍威尔感到后悔。
联邦基金利率与2年期国债收益率走势
驾驭一个难以掌控的体系
由于特朗普一直在试图削弱美联储制定货币政策的独立性，鲍威尔选择继续留任美联储理事，这也是沃什就任全球最强大央行行长以来的又一不同寻常之处。其他主要央行在紧急情况下都会向美联储寻求美元流动性。
尽管一些美联储主席曾行使过决定性影响力，包括保罗·沃尔克和艾伦·格林斯潘等前任领导人，但美国央行在设计上就存在难以协调的问题，华盛顿的七名理事会成员和12家地区联邦储备银行行长都会参与政策辩论。
近年来，决策制定逐渐倾向于主席主导的共识构建。沃什曾表示，他倾向于采用一种不同的、毫无保留的辩论方式，允许更多异议，并愿意在政策决策上可能给金融市场带来意外，摒弃近年来普遍使用的前瞻性指引来提前向公众预告政策走向。
全球投资者是否准备好接受这种方式仍是未知数，但如果最近的美联储会议能说明什么的话，他的同事们似乎已经准备好上演沃什在确认听证会上所说的“家庭内部争执”。
4月的美联储会议出现了30多年来最多的异议投票，会议纪要显示，沃什的多数新同事认为可能需要加息——这与特朗普直到最近的表态以及沃什直到最近一直在阐述的政策方向相悖。
这个存在分歧的官员群体包括与沃什专业知识背景不同的博士经济学家、至少拥有相当市场经验的高级投资专业人士，以及他们的前任领导人鲍威尔。在其他六位理事中，有三位是由前总统乔·拜登任命的，其中包括丽莎·库克，特朗普正试图将其解雇。
然而，在他们辩论下一步政策举措时，投资者似乎已经下定决心，面对日益严峻的通胀，需要加息。对于决定消费者借贷成本的长期债券来说，收益率已经在上升。
霍华德·施奈德报道；丹·伯恩斯与辛西娅·奥斯特曼编辑
Trump and Warsh’s fates are now tied, for better or worse
2026-05-25T10:03:11.524Z / Reuters
WASHINGTON, May 25 (Reuters) – Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell was a handy foil for President Donald Trump, a target of blame for everything from high mortgage interest rates to the pace of economic growth.
But with new Chair Kevin Warsh now installed as the country’s central bank chief – completing Trump’s imprimatur across the top echelon of U.S. economic policymaking posts – the dynamic shifts. Where Trump previously could claim that Powell was foisted on him in his first administration by advisers like then-Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin, Warsh is Trump’s pick, and the president owns the results.
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As if to emphasize the stakes, Trump hosted Warsh at a White House swearing-in ceremony on Friday that included cabinet secretaries, Supreme Court justices and top White House advisers in a pep rally atmosphere, saying in extended remarks that he wanted Warsh to “do your own thing and do a great job.
“Kevin understands that when the economy is booming that is a good thing…we want it to boom…We don’t want to see it stifled,” Trump said.
Measures consumer sentiment by party identification
HIGH STAKES FOR MIDTERMS
After campaigning and winning a second term on promises of lowering prices and addressing larger “affordability” issues for U.S. households, Trump’s approval rating on the economy has slipped dramatically.
A reading of consumer sentiment posted roughly 90 minutes before Warsh’s swearing-in showed a broadly glum mood across America. That included confidence in the economy among independents – a key voting bloc in fast-approaching midterm congressional elections – and even Republicans tumbling to the lowest level of Trump’s second term.
The interest rate on 30-year home mortgages has risen back above 6.5%, a nine-month high and a continuing weight on an anemic housing market. Prices in general have continued rising under Trump, despite campaign pledges that they would fall from “day one” of his presidency: Since March 2025, the inflation gauge the Fed uses to set its 2% target has accelerated from 2.3% annually to 3.5%.
A gallon of gas, on average, cost $4.55 as of Friday, compared with less than $3 before Trump launched attacks on Iran in late February.
Shows gasoline prices
Just how Warsh’s performance as Fed leader in his first months might shape the prospects of Trump’s Republican Party in the midterms is unclear – and fraught with potential pitfalls.
High inflation is never kind to incumbent parties facing voters anxious about their wallets, but battling it involves tough medicine usually in the form of interest rate hikes that are also rarely popular – and certainly would not be welcomed by Trump.
Moreover, the Fed remains a diffuse body where the new chair will have to build his authority over time – all while the world looks for evidence of Trump’s influence.
“Powell was a really great scapegoat for Trump for issues that had nothing to do with Powell,” said Richard Stern, who studies economic policy at the conservative Advancing American Freedom think tank. Now “it’s going to be Trump’s economy…The big thing everybody was concerned with, the price increases, the affordability problem, all of that isn’t going to go away for years, many years, probably…And that’s independent of anything Trump is going to do or could do, and it’s independent of anything Warsh is going to do.”
Warsh, 56, a lawyer and financier who served as a Fed governor from 2006 to 2011, has spent the time since then burnishing his chances to return as chair. His professional mentors have included figures like renowned monetarist economist Milton Friedman and former Secretary of State George Shultz, while his work with Wall Street giant Stanley Druckenmiller made him rich even beyond his wife’s stake in the Estee Lauder cosmetics fortune.
But it was his social and political ties to Trump that sealed the deal, with the president regretting that he had passed over Warsh for Powell in 2017.
Shows the federal funds rate versus the 2-year yield
HERDING AN UNWIELDY SYSTEM
Powell, because of Trump’s efforts to undermine the Fed’s standing to set monetary policy free of his influence, has chosen to stay on as a Fed governor, another unusual aspect of Warsh’s opening months as head of the world’s most powerful central bank, the institution other major central banks turn to for dollars in a pinch.
Even though some Fed chairs have exercised decisive influence, including past leaders like Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan, the U.S. central bank is unwieldy by design, with a seven-member Board of Governors based in Washington and 12 presidents of regional Fed banks all participating in policy debates.
In recent years decision making has drifted towards more consensus-building by the chair. Warsh has said he favors a different, no-holds-barred debate approach, with more dissent, and a willingness to potentially surprise financial markets with policy decisions free of the forward guidance commonly used in recent years to prepare the public.
Whether global investors are ready for that approach remains an open question, but if recent Fed meetings are any indication his colleagues seem primed to deliver the “family fight” Warsh said during his confirmation hearing he relishes.
The April Fed meeting saw the most dissents in more than 30 years, and minutes of the meeting showed a majority of Warsh’s new colleagues think interest rates may need to rise – the opposite of what Trump has until recently said he expects and what Warsh until recently had been laying out the case to deliver.
That divided group of officials includes PhD economists with different technical knowledge than Warsh, high-level investment professionals with at least comparable experience in markets, and their former leader Powell. Among the six other governors, three were appointed by former President Joe Biden, including one, Lisa Cook, who Trump is trying to fire.
Yet as they debate the next policy moves, investors seem to have made up their mind that interest rates will need to rise in the face of stiffening inflation. For the long-dated bonds that determine what consumers pay to borrow money, yields are already rising.
Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Dan Burns and Cynthia Osterman