Trump Calls for End to Interest Rate Hikes Citing Strong Economy

President Donald Trump expressed his desire for the Federal Reserve to halt interest rate hikes, stating that the US economy is strong enough to withstand them. In an interview with TIME, Trump argued that the country should have 'the lowest interest rate in the world,' and that higher rates make it harder to reduce the federal debt.

'The one thing that you can do is pay it off through growth,' Trump said, citing the strong economic expansion as a means to tackle the debt burden. He also pointed out that tariffs are encouraging manufacturers to build more plants in the US to avoid import costs.

Trump also weighed in on artificial intelligence (AI), describing it as 'the industrial revolution, but bigger' and 'the internet, but much bigger.' He emphasized the importance of domestic data centers and warned that excessive regulation could stifle innovation. The president left open the possibility of government stakes in frontier AI companies.