The United States Federal Reserve is holding interest rates steady in its first rate decision of 2026.
Rates will remain at 3.5 to 3.75 percent, the Fed said on Wednesday, defying US President Donald Trump’s calls for more aggressive interest rate cuts.
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“The Committee seeks to achieve maximum employment and inflation at the rate of 2 percent over the longer run. Uncertainty about the economic outlook remains elevated,” the central bank said in its release announcing the decision.
Wednesday’s decision was widely expected. CME FedWatch, a tool that tracks expectations for monetary policy, forecast a more than 97 percent chance that the central bank would hold rates steady.
The tracker also expects two rate cuts in 2026, with the highest probability for the first cut occurring in June at the earliest.
“Available indicators suggest that economic activity has been expanding at a solid pace. Job gains have remained low, and the unemployment rate has shown some signs of stabilization,” the central bank said.
The decision comes amid signs of stabilisation in the US labour market. The US economy added 584,000 jobs in 2025, marking the lowest annual job growth since 2003. Payrolls rose by 64,000 jobs in October and 50,000 in December. While job growth remains weak, December’s figure represents a modest rebound from October, when the economy lost 105,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
There are indications that the labour market may cool further in the months ahead. This week, both Amazon and UPS announced tens of thousands of job cuts, some of which were driven by a push towards increasing the use of artificial intelligence in the workplace.
Another threat to the US economy and the job market comes in the form of a looming government shutdown. That can happen as early as Saturday, and depending on its duration, it could slow spending as federal workers are temporarily left without paycheques.
Political tensions
The decision to hold interest rates steady comes despite Trump’s increased pressure on the central bank to cut rates. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has long stressed the Federal Reserve’s independence, and Wednesday’s decision is the first since Powell’s rebuke of a criminal Department of Justice investigation into him. The central bank chair, whose term expires in May, called the inquiry a “pretext” to pressure him.
“The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president,” Powell said in remarks in early January in response to a subpoena. On Wednesday, in the news conference that followed the rate decision, Powell, in response to a question on what advice would he give to his successor said, “stay out of elected politics”.
Last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case examining whether Trump has the legal authority to remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook amid allegations of mortgage fraud, a hearing that Powell attended in a more public show of support for Cook than he previously had. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had criticised Powell’s plans ahead of the hearing, calling it “political”.
In response to another question in the news conference on why he attended the court hearing, Powell said he thought it through and came to the conclusion that “that case is perhaps the most important legal case in Fed’s 113 year history and I thought about it and went.” He added that
Paul Volcker had gone to a Supreme Court hearing when he was the Fed chair in the mid 1980s “so it’s precedented and I did it”.
Meanwhile, Fed Governor Stephan Miran’s term is set to expire this week. Trump picked Miran to temporarily fill the seat vacated by Adriana Kugler in August while seeking a more permanent replacement.
Miran was one of two central bank governors who voted to lower interest rates alongside Christopher Waller.
The developments come as Trump searches for a new Fed chair. He has explicitly called for further interest rate cuts and for a chairman who shares his views.
“Anybody that disagrees with me will never be the Fed Chairman!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social in December.
The political pressure has caught the attention of global central banks as well.
“The Federal Reserve is the biggest, most important central bank in the world, and we all need it to work well. A loss of independence of the Fed would affect us all,” Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said on Wednesday. Canada’s central bank held rates steady ahead of the US central bank’s decision.
Macklem was one of the central bank heads who earlier this month issued a joint statement backing Powell. Last September, Macklem said Trump’s attempts to pressure the Fed were starting to hit markets.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is flat, as is the Nasdaq, and the S&P 500 is down 0.1 in midday trading.