WASHINGTON—President Trump has nominated two more people to serve on the board of the Federal Reserve.
Trump nominated Richard Clarida, a Columbia University economics professor and longtime adviser to one of the world’s largest bond firms, to be vice chairman at the Fed serving under Chairman Jerome H. Powell. The Fed has indicated it intends to raise interest rates at least three times this year and another three times in 2019. If that path holds, interest rates would probably be over 2% by the end of this year and near 3% by the end of the following year.
The president also nominated Michelle Bowman, the current bank commissioner in Kansas, to be a Fed board member. She is Trump’s first female choice for the Fed out of the five people he has nominated to date. Clarida and Bowman’s positions require Senate hearings and confirmation before they can take the jobs, much like the process for Supreme Court justices, the Washington Post noted.
“Just hours before announcing the nominees, Trump tweeted that U.S. interest rates were rising, and he left it unclear whether he wanted that to continue. His nominees appear unlikely to push for raising rates any faster than the pace Powell has laid out since he took over as chairman in February,” the Post stated.