If President Trump wants to assign blame to someone for the Federal Reserve’s decision not to cut interest rates, he might start by looking in the mirror. With his constant and highly personal attacks on Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell, Trump has backed the Fed into a corner where any rate cut would almost certainly be interpreted as political capitulation by the central bank.

Following the Fed’s July decision to leave the fed funds rate unchanged, Trump shared some of his thoughts about Powell. “Jerome Powell is too late, too angry, too stupid, and too political to have the job of Fed Chair.” This statement followed a similar critique in June, when Trump wrote, “Powell is truly one of the dumbest, and most destructive, people in government.”

It’s always dangerous to read too much into subtext, but I think we can reasonably conclude that the President doesn’t care for the Federal Reserve Board Chair.

At least one aspect of Trump’s criticism is fair. Since Powell became Fed Chair in February 2018, the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy has been notably slow in responding to shifts in market expectations, supporting the President’s charge that Powell is “too late.” The most glaring example began in May 2020, when investors, anticipating that the massive covid relief spending would increase inflation, drove the market rate on 10-year Treasury bonds from 0.65% to 2.85% before the Fed took any steps to tighten monetary policy. By then, inflation had already more than tripled, on its way from essentially zero to 9.1% in June 2022.

Like all real estate developers, Trump prefers interest rates to move in one direction: down. But setting rates to support building hotels (or to fund a $1.8 trillion annual government deficit) is not the mandate of the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve Act charges the Fed with promoting maximum employment while maintaining low inflation. But those goals are often in tension. To maximize full employment, the Fed would drive interest rates to zero. But lower rates have an inflationary effect on consumer prices. As a result, the Fed constantly walks a fine line between trying to maximize employment without causing inflation. Theoretically, anyway.

The irony of Trump firing the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics following an 258,000 downward revision in the previously reported new jobs numbers is that those weak employment figures are exactly the type of data that might strengthen the case for a rate cut. But if there is any doubt among the Fed members about whether to cut, I wouldn’t expect the Chair to be excited at the prospect of seeming to help or concede to the President.

David Moon is president of Moon Capital Management. A version of this piece originally appeared in the USA TODAY NETWORK.