{"id":644159,"date":"2026-06-17T21:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T21:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/644159\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T21:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T21:31:09","slug":"fed-holds-us-interest-rates-steady-amid-uncertainty-over-iran-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/644159\/","title":{"rendered":"Fed holds US interest rates steady amid uncertainty over Iran deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Federal Reserve held US interest rates between 3.5% and 3.75% after Kevin Warsh’s first meeting in charge<\/a> of the central bank.<\/p>\n

Fed governors were split on whether to keep rates steady or increase them in a bid to tame inflation, which has been pushed up by the US-Israel war in Iran.<\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump pushed Warsh’s predecessor<\/a>, Jerome Powell, to cut interest rates, and made clear he expected Warsh to fulfill his demand for cuts.<\/p>\n

But, with inflation running at an above-target 3.8%, and uncertainty surrounding Trump’s deal to end the war with Iran, the Fed’s rate-setting committee unanimously decided to kept rates steady.<\/p>\n

In a statement backed by its 12 members, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) said: “Economic activity is expanding at a solid pace despite elevated uncertainty that owes, in part, to the conflict in the Middle East. Productivity growth and capital investment are strong. <\/p>\n

“Job gains have kept pace with the workforce, and the unemployment rate has changed little.”<\/p>\n

The Fed’s statement on Wednesday represented a marked change in the central bank’s communication style, one of Warsh’s key promises for his tenure.<\/p>\n

He was a sharp critic of how the Fed has communicated its decisions in the past, arguing it should say less while getting on with the job.<\/p>\n

Its most recent statement, released in April, was almost 350 words, while Wednesday’s update was just 132. “The Committee will deliver price stability,” it concluded.<\/p>\n

The Fed’s update also removed a statement hinting that it was leaning towards lowering interest rates in the future. <\/p>\n

And nine of the 18 central bankers who participated in the FOMC’s rate-setting process predicted an interest rate hike this year, while just one said they expected a cut. The remaining eight predicted rates will stay the same, according to the closely watched “dot-plot” grid of central bankers’ expectations released alongside the decision. <\/p>\n

Warsh did not offer a projection of his own for the “dot-plot”, which he opposes, but said he encouraged his colleagues to go ahead with it.<\/p>\n

Samuel Tombs, chief US economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said the “big news” from Wednesday was the “dot-plot” pointing to potential interest rate hikes before the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Asked about the Fed’s decision, Trump said “it’s alright\u2026 whatever”.<\/p>\n

He said “it could happen\u2026 it’s hard to believe”, when asked about potential interest rate hikes. “It just keeps the country down, it is so unusual,” he added.<\/p>\n

But he heaped praise on Warsh, who he nominated to replace Powell, saying “we have a very good guy over there now, so I’m guided by what he wanted”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Federal Reserve held US interest rates between 3.5% and 3.75% after Kevin Warsh’s first meeting in charge…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-644159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}