In this “ask ian,” Ian Bremmer responds to the US investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and why it matters far beyond interest rates.
Ian warns that politicizing the central bank undermines “something core to the long-term stability of the US dollar and the US economy.”
The trigger is a policy clash. Trump wants rates cut more aggressively; Powell doesn’t agree. “This is an intellectual policy disagreement,” Ian says, adding that Powell has been clear he won’t bend to political pressure.
Ian situates the moment in a broader pattern: investigations and institutions increasingly weaponized for politics, eroding checks and balances and raising the stakes for US democracy and economic stability.
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