Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump would be inclined to replace Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen if he wins the White House despite supporting the US central bank’s efforts to keep interest rates low, he told Fortune magazine.
“I think she’s done a serviceable job,” Trump said in an interview, as the billionaire real estate mogul moved a step closer to becoming his party’s nominee with a resounding win in the New York’s Republican primary.
“I don’t want to comment on reappointment, but I would be more inclined to put other people in.”
Trump said he “absolutely” backed efforts to diminish the Fed’s power and allow Congress to launch so-called “audits,” or outside reviews, of its policy decisions.
Reps for the Fed declined to comment.
Yellen, the most powerful figure in world finance, took office in February 2014 for a four-year term.
Still, Trump backed the Fed’s focus on holding U.S. interest rates down, saying that raising them now would be a blow to the U.S. economy. Trump had accused the Fed in November of keeping interest rates low to help President Obama, an assertion the White House has flatly rejected.
“The best thing we have going for us is that interest rates are so low,” he told Fortune.
“If rates are 3 percent or 4 percent or whatever, you start adding that kind of number to an already reasonably crippled economy in terms of what we produce, that number is a very scary number,” he added.
Trump told the magazine he would take advantage of lower rates to refinance the country’s debt and boost government spending on infrastructure and the military. Fortune will publish a full transcript of the interview later this week.