The Internationalism

Internationalism No. 85, March 2026 Page 11 The White House’s siege on the Federal Reserve reached a moment of clarity with the appointment of Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s successor, but Donald Trump’s machine has not stopped. The Justice Department’s criminal investigation into alleged wrongdoing in the renovation of the Fed’s buildings continues. The aim is to oust Powell not only from the presidency, but also from the board of the central bank in order to break his resistance to Trump’s line, which demands drastic cuts in interest rates. Trump wants a hot, hot, hot economy, according to The Wall Street Journal . The judicial persecution, denounced by Powell as an attempt to impose a monetary policy directed by political pressure or intimidation , has provoked a bipartisan reaction in the Senate. North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis has pledged to block the approval process for the designated successor to the Fed chair until the ca...

Internationalism No. 80, October 2025 Page 8 In the 1970s, the US Congress gave the Federal Reserve a dual mandate: to ensure price stability and promote maximum employment through interest rates. When a prevailing trend is clear, the Fed's course of action is simple: if inflation visibly rises, it must raise rates and increase the cost of money; if the economy is limping and the labour market is faltering, it must open the credit taps and reduce rates. That is the theory, but in practice there is political struggle, the interpretation of data, short- and long-term forecasts, and divergent interests among bourgeois fractions. Economic data is often contradictory, and this is what is happening in America today, with an added complication: an open struggle between the executive and the central bank for control of monetary policy. Between inflation and employment Fed Chairman Jerome Powell summed up the situation: The unemployment rate is...