2026年5月13日 / 美国东部时间下午3:19 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
华盛顿——美联储将于本周五迎来新主席，但他的权力并不像看起来那样广泛。
参议院周三以54票赞成、45票反对的结果确认了特朗普总统提名的美联储主席人选凯文·沃什。特朗普对货币政策岗位的目标不难看出：他数月来公开施压美联储降息，并多次抨击即将卸任的主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔没有迅速降息。
沃什曾誓言要做一名“独立决策者”，表示不会根据特朗普的观点制定政策。他将在下月有机会发表意见，届时美联储利率设定委员会将召开下一次会议。他的计划尚不明确。他去年曾暗示对降息持开放态度，但在之前担任美联储理事会成员期间，他以支持紧缩货币政策而闻名。
但他无法独自决定利率。美联储主席通常对利率设定委员会拥有巨大影响力，但他们的权力并非绝对。专家表示，沃什需要努力就正确的前进方向达成共识——在当前充满不确定性、对伊朗战争的担忧以及顽固的通胀问题的经济环境下，这是一项棘手的任务。大多数分析师预计未来几个月利率将保持稳定。
此外，至少在目前，鲍威尔计划继续留在美联储理事会。此前美国司法部发起的一项有争议的刑事调查促使他留任。
“主席拥有说服他人的权力，”兰德尔·克罗兹纳说道，他曾于2006年至2009年与沃什一同担任美联储理事，目前是芝加哥大学教授。“他们处于非常有利的位置去说服他人，但他们仍然需要去说服。”
究竟是谁设定利率？
2026年4月29日，周三，纽约证券交易所大厅内，联邦公开市场委员会会议结束后，美联储主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔发表讲话。迈克尔·纳格尔 / 彭博社通过盖蒂图片社拍摄
利率目标并非由美联储主席设定，而是由每年召开八次会议的联邦公开市场委员会（FOMC）决定。从技术上讲，主席在委员会12名成员中仅有一票表决权。
委员会的7名投票成员——美联储理事——由总统直接提名，任期14年，这使得单个行政当局对美联储成员构成的影响力有限。目前，三名美联储理事是特朗普任命的，其中包括沃什。另外三名是拜登任命的，第七名是鲍威尔，他最初是在奥巴马政府时期被任命进入美联储理事会，并在特朗普第一届政府期间担任主席。
FOMC的另外五个席位属于纽约联邦储备银行行长，以及11名其他地区联邦储备银行行长中轮流产生的4名行长。白宫对地区联邦储备银行行长几乎没有控制权，这些行长由各地区银行理事会聘请，任期五年，随后需经美联储理事会批准。
换句话说，至少在目前，利率设定委员会中仅有四分之一的成员是特朗普直接任命的。而且也不能保证特朗普任命的官员会站在总统一边。毕竟，鲍威尔就是特朗普任命的主席。
美联储主席的“软实力”
尽管如此，前美联储官员表示，主席对FOMC的影响力远超其单一表决权。
曾担任美联储高级工作人员、联邦公开市场委员会秘书，现为耶鲁大学教授的比尔·英格利希表示，在某些情况下，美联储主席会积累“软实力”。他解释说，如果主席有着做出正确决策的记录，随着时间的推移，他们就能在委员会成员中获得公信力，而且“在边际上，人们可能愿意给主席一些宽松空间”。
此外，2010年至2014年担任美联储理事、后在奥巴马政府期间担任财政部副部长的萨拉·布鲁姆·拉斯金表示，主席和普通委员会成员通常都希望在会议结束后达成共识。
“这会向市场传递更有力的信号。市场会关注共识投票，其反应可能与投票分散的情况截然不同，”拉斯金在接受哥伦比亚广播公司新闻采访时说道。“主席有强烈的意愿去争取所有投票成员的共识。”
拉斯金表示，达成共识的过程在委员会会议前几天就开始了，主席会致电或与地区联邦储备银行行长及理事会成员会面。杜克大学法学院教授拉斯金指出，通常在会议开始前，“你就相当清楚人们通常会持何种立场”。
拉斯金指出，实际上，美联储理事会的经济学家和其他工作人员都向主席汇报工作，因此经济预测和其他信息往往会先传到主席那里，再传给其他人。克罗兹纳表示，主席“有很大能力指导工作人员关注特定问题”。
随后，当会议召开时，主席和其他成员会花两天时间分享他们对经济状况的看法，并讨论正确的前进方向，包括是否调整被称为联邦基金利率的目标利率。克罗兹纳指出，主席通常是“讨论的焦点”，并协助准备他们权衡的政策选项。
英格利希表示，在整个过程中，“主席的工作是与每个人沟通，试图让他们相信主席的观点是正确的”。
“最终，主席可能无法得到自己想要的结果，但他会让委员会尽可能朝着目标前进，”他说。“通常情况下，结果可能并不完全是主席按自己意愿做出的选择，但他们必须让委员会接受这个方向。”
最终的成果是一份简短的声明，阐明委员会选择的行动，并（有时含糊地）描述他们对未来的看法。投资者会细致入微地审视这份声明，寻找可能预示委员会下一步计划的细微措辞变化。出于这个原因，成员们会极其详细地讨论这份声明，拉斯金指出。
“这份声明会被广泛争论，包括逗号、引号和新词汇，”她说。“最微小的细节都会引发激烈辩论。”
在某些情况下，成员会投反对票。从历史上看，大多数反对票来自地区联邦储备银行行长，但在过去七次会议中的每一次，至少有一名特朗普任命的理事会成员支持比委员会准备支持的更低的利率。
然而，投票结果特别接近的情况很少见，几乎全票通过的情况很常见。
“这些决策往往是艰难的抉择，”克罗兹纳说道，他解释说，在某些情况下，成员可能会听从主席的意见，但会公开“表明立场”，表示他们对经济走向存在担忧。
鲍威尔的情况如何？
沃什下月主持他的首次FOMC会议时，可能需要应对75多年来其他主席都未曾遇到过的情况：他的前任仍在任上。
2026年4月17日，周五，杰罗姆·鲍威尔抵达华盛顿特区的国际货币基金组织总部。塞缪尔·科里根 / 彭博社通过盖蒂图片社拍摄
鲍威尔的美联储主席任期将于本周五结束，但他作为普通理事的任期要到2028年才到期。大多数美联储主席在执掌央行的任期结束后都会离职，但司法部的一项刑事调查促使鲍威尔延长了留任时间。
这项针对美联储办公室昂贵翻新工程的调查，是由美国华盛顿特区检察官让娜·皮罗办公室发起的，美联储在今年早些时候收到了传票。鲍威尔认为这是特朗普政府向美联储施压、削弱其独立性的企图，检察官对此予以否认。皮罗上月结束了调查，但表示如果美联储监察长提出任何刑事转介，她可能会重启调查。
鲍威尔表示，他不会在调查“真正彻底结束”之前离开美联储。
“我对最近的事态发展感到鼓舞，我正在密切关注这一过程中剩余的步骤，”他说。“我在这些问题上的决定将完全基于我认为符合该机构和我们服务的民众的最佳利益。”
除非情况发生变化，这意味着鲍威尔将成为自1948年马里纳·埃克尔斯的主席任期结束以来，首位继续留在理事会的前美联储主席。
那么，鲍威尔将在利率设定决策中发挥多大作用？他上月表示，计划保持“低调”——当一名记者请他详细说明这意味着什么时，他 briefly ducked behind the lectern and cracked a half-smile.（此处按原文保留原句，因涉及动作描写，不影响理解）
“我尊重主席的角色，”他接着说道，并提到自己在担任美联储主席前曾担任六年理事。“我非常清楚让这个团体达成共识有多困难。我一直觉得，我不想不必要地增加这种难度。”
鲍威尔表示，他希望“非常有建设性”，这意味着尝试“支持……主席想要推进的方向，如果可以的话。如果不行，那也没办法。”他还排除了担任某种“影子主席”、对其他成员拥有过大影响力的可能性。
尽管如此，专家表示，鲍威尔可能会比普通委员会成员获得更多关注。
“我认为他的存在会被注意到，他表达观点的方式也会被注意到，”拉斯金在接受哥伦比亚广播公司新闻采访时说道。她指出，美联储现有工作人员对鲍威尔非常熟悉，其中许多人至少在目前可能还会留任。
英格利希指出，鲍威尔是一位“受尊敬的人物”，已在美联储任职十多年，因此“当他在FOMC会议上发言时，人们会倾听”。
“但他会努力避免任何形式的阻挠，我对此深信不疑，”他说。
预计美联储不会立即采取重大行动
2026年4月21日，周二，美联储主席提名人凯文·沃什抵达参议院确认听证会现场。汤姆·威廉姆斯/CQ滚球通讯社通过美联社拍摄
大多数专家和投资者都认为，不会因为沃什上任，美联储就会对利率采取任何重大举措。
在设定利率目标时，FOMC的职责是维持高就业率和物价稳定。这是一项具有挑战性的工作，因为这些目标可能相互冲突：如果委员会大幅降息，经济可能过热，但通胀可能飙升；如果为抑制通胀而将利率定得过高，可能会损害经济增长。
该委员会在2022年和2023年加息以应对通胀。自那以后，它采取了谨慎的降息态度，在2024年底降息1个百分点，2025年底再降息0.75个百分点。今年的三次会议均维持利率不变，就业数据相当稳定，但通胀仍高于美联储2%的目标。最近，鲍威尔指出美国与伊朗的战争是不确定性的来源，也是谨慎行事的原因。
预计美联储将在一段时间内维持利率稳定。根据芝加哥商品交易所集团的FedWatch工具，投资者认为今年剩余五次会议中任何一次加息或降息的概率都低于40%。美国银行分析师上周预测，美联储将推迟到2027年下半年降息，理由是通胀回升和就业数据强劲。
周二公布的新联邦数据显示，4月通胀率同比飙升至3.8%，为2023年中期以来的最高水平，一些分析师认为这可能使降息的可能性进一步降低。
沃什在利率方面的直接目标尚不完全明确。
他去年曾在多个场合主张降低利率，并预测人工智能可能通过带来大规模生产率增长来抑制通胀，为美联储实施更宽松的货币政策留出空间。（至少有一名FOMC成员，芝加哥联邦储备银行行长奥斯汀·古尔斯比认为，人工智能炒作可能会导致通胀更高，而非更低。）
但在2006年至2011年期间担任美联储理事会成员的早期阶段，沃什被称为更偏向鹰派，这意味着他对通胀持警惕态度，往往支持紧缩政策。
沃什还呼吁对美联储的运作方式进行更广泛的“体制变革”。他认为，央行官员过于频繁地向公众传达他们的观点并做出明确预测，并支持从美联储资产负债表规模到银行监管等方方面面的改革。
在上月的参议院听证会上，沃什表示，特朗普没有要求他“预先决定、确定或就任何利率决策做出裁定”。他还告诉议员们，他希望听取FOMC成员的不同观点，并赞成“比某些人更‘混乱’的会议”。
英格利希认为，沃什不太可能立即推动降息，他指出经济前景存在不确定性，委员会成员目前似乎存在分歧。
“我认为他目前无法让委员会接受这个方向，”他说。
如果沃什希望立即降息——目前尚不清楚——拉斯金表示，支持这一举措的人需要提出一个“可信、分析有力且严谨的案例”，能够“经得起推敲”。
克罗兹纳曾与沃什在美联储理事会和乔治·W·布什政府期间共事，当时克罗兹纳在经济顾问委员会任职，沃什则在国家经济委员会工作。他称沃什是一名“长期战略思想家”，“希望带领大家共同前进”。
“他明白，要办成事情，你需要……围绕目标达成共识，”克罗兹纳说。“你不能一上来就说，‘一刀切，我想做这个或那个’。那不会有什么效果。”
How much sway will new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh really have over interest rates?
May 13, 2026 / 3:19 PM EDT / CBS News
Washington— The Federal Reserve will get a new leader on Friday — but his power isn’t as vast as it might seem.
The Senate confirmed Kevin Warsh, President Trump’s pick for Fed chair, in a 54-45 vote on Wednesday. Mr. Trump’s goals for the monetary policy job are not difficult to discern: He has openly pressed the Fed to slash interest rates for months, and has repeatedly lashed out at outgoing Chair Jerome Powell for not rapidly cutting rates.
Warsh — who has vowed to be an “independent actor” and said he will not set policy based on Mr. Trump’s views — will get a chance to weigh in next month, when the Fed’s interest rate-setting committee is scheduled to have its next meeting. His plans are not clear. He suggested some openness to rate cuts last year, but in a prior stint as a member of the Fed’s Board of Governors, he was known for favoring tighter monetary policy.
But he won’t be able to decide on rates all on his own. Fed chairs usually have a great deal of influence over the rate-setting committee, but their power is not absolute. Experts say Warsh will need to work to form consensus on the right path forward — a tricky task in an economic landscape marked by uncertainty, fears about the Iran war and a stubborn inflation problem. Most analysts expect interest rates to remain steady for the next few months.
Plus, at least for now, Powell is planning to remain on the Fed board, after a controversial criminal probe by the Justice Department led him to stick around.
“The chair has the power to persuade,” said Randall Kroszner, who served alongside Warsh as a Fed governor from 2006 to 2009 and now works as a University of Chicago professor. “And they’re in a very strong position to be able to persuade. But they still need to persuade.”
Who actually sets interest rates?
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks after a Federal Open Market Committee meeting on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York on Wednesday, April 29, 2026. Michael Nagle / Bloomberg via Getty Images
Interest rate targets are set not by the Fed chair, but by the Federal Open Market Committee, which meets eight times a year. Technically, the chair has just one vote out of the committee’s 12 members.
Seven of the committee’s voting members — the Fed governors — are directly nominated by the president, and they serve for 14-year terms, giving a single administration limited power over the Fed’s makeup. Currently, three Fed governors are Trump appointees, including Warsh. Three others are Biden appointees, and the seventh is Powell, who was first named to the Fed board during the Obama administration and made chair during the first Trump administration.
The FOMC’s other five seats belong to the president of the New York Federal Reserve and a rotating cast of four of the 11 other regional Fed bank chiefs. The White House has very little control over the regional Fed presidents, who are hired to five-year terms by the board of each regional bank and then approved by the Fed’s Board of Governors.
In other words, at least for the time being, just a quarter of the interest rate-setting committee’s members are direct Trump appointees. There’s also no guarantee that the Trump appointees will side with the president. After all, Powell was appointed chair by Mr. Trump.
The Fed chair’s “soft power”
Still, former Fed officials say the chair’s influence over the FOMC extends well beyond their single vote.
In some cases, Fed chairs have built up “soft power,” said Bill English, a former senior Fed staff member and secretary of the Federal Open Market Committee who is now a Yale University professor. If a chair has a track record of making good decisions, they can gain credibility with committee members over time, he explained, and “at the margin, people are maybe willing to cut the chair some slack.”
Plus, both the chair and the rank-and-file committee members usually want to emerge from meetings with a consensus, said Sarah Bloom Raskin, who served as a Fed governor from 2010 to 2014 and later as deputy Treasury secretary during the Obama administration.
“It conveys more force to the marketplace. Markets will pick up on a consensus vote, and might react differently than they would if it were a more fragmented-looking vote,” Raskin told CBS News. “The chair has a great incentive to want to get the consensus of all the voting members.”
The process of forming a consensus starts a few days before the panel meets, with the chair calling up or sitting down with regional Fed presidents and board members. Oftentimes, “you’re pretty sure where people typically are going to stand” before the meeting begins, according to Raskin, a Duke University School of Law professor.
In practice, the economists and other staff who work for the Fed’s Board of Governors also report to the chair, so economic forecasts and other information often goes to the chair before anybody else, notes Raskin. And Kroszner says the chair “has a lot of ability to direct the staff to focus on particular issues.”
Then, when the meeting rolls around, the chair and other members spend two days sharing their views about the state of the economy and discussing the correct path forward, including whether to make changes to their target interest rate, known as the federal funds rate. The chair usually serves as “the focal point for the discussions” and helps prepare the policy options that they weigh, Kroszner noted.
Throughout the process, English says, “the chair’s job is to talk to everybody, try to convince them that the chair is right.”
“In the end, the chair may not get the outcome that they want, but they get the committee to move as far as they can,” he said. “Fairly often, probably it’s not exactly what the chair would’ve done if the chair had their druthers, but they have to bring the committee along.”
The final product is a short statement that lays out what actions the committee chose to take and describes — sometimes vaguely — how they view the future. Investors meticulously scrutinize the statement, looking for tiny wording changes that could signal what the committee is planning to do next. For that reason, members discuss the statement in extreme detail, Raskin noted.
“That statement gets argued on quite extensively, including commas and quotation marks and new words,” she said. “The smallest little bits are the subject of great debate.”
In some cases, members dissent. Historically, most dissents have come from regional Fed presidents, but at each of the last seven meetings, at least one Trump-appointed board member has backed lower rates than the committee was prepared to support.
It’s rare, however, for the vote to be especially close, and near-unanimous votes are common.
“Often, these things are close calls,” Kroszner said, explaining that in some cases, members may defer to the chair but vocally “put down a marker” that they have concerns about the direction of the economy.
What about Powell?
When Warsh leads his first FOMC meeting next month, he may need to contend with something no other chair has dealt with in over 75 years: his predecessor.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell arrives at IMF headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Friday, April 17, 2026. Samuel Corum / Bloomberg via Getty Images
Powell’s stint as Fed chair ends on Friday, but his term as a rank-and-file governor does not expire until 2028. Most Fed chairs leave the central bank when their time in the corner office runs out, but a Justice Department criminal investigation caused Powell to extend his stay.
The investigation — which focused on a pricey renovation to the Fed’s offices — was launched by the office of U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro, and the Fed received subpoenas earlier this year. Powell viewed it as an effort by the Trump administration to pressure the Fed and erode its independence, which prosecutors denied. Pirro closed the investigation last month, but suggested she could restart it depending on whether the Fed’s inspector general makes any criminal referrals.
Powell has said he will not leave the Fed until the probe is “well and truly over.”
“I am encouraged by recent developments, and I am watching the remaining steps in this process carefully,” he said. “My decisions on these matters will continue to be guided entirely by what I believe is in the best interest of the institution and the people we serve.”
Barring some change, that means Powell will be the first former Fed chair to remain on the board since Marriner Eccles’ term as chair expired in 1948.
So, how active of a role will Powell play in interest rate-setting decisions? He said last month he plans to keep a “low profile” — and when a reporter asked him to expand on what that looks like, he briefly ducked behind the lectern and cracked a half-smile.
“I respect the role of the chair,” he went on to say, pointing to his six years as a governor before he started leading the Fed. “I had real sympathy for how hard it is to get that group to consensus. And I always felt like I don’t want to add to that unnecessarily.”
Powell said he wants to be “very constructive,” which means trying to “support … the direction the chair wants to go in, if you can. If you can’t, you can’t.” And he ruled out the idea of serving as a kind of “shadow chair” who commands outsize influence over other members.
Still, Powell may get more attention than the average committee member, experts say.
“I think his presence will be noticed, and how he expresses his views will be noticed,” Raskin told CBS News. She pointed out that the Fed’s existing staff know Powell well, and many of them will likely stick around, at least for now.
English noted that Powell is a “respected figure” who has served at the Fed for over a decade, so “when he speaks at an FOMC meeting, people will listen to him.”
“But he’s going to be trying hard to not be obstructionist in any way. I’m sure of that,” he said.
Fed isn’t expected to make any big moves right away
Kevin Warsh, nominee for chairman of the Federal Reserve, arrives for his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday, April 21, 2026. Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images
Most experts and investors don’t believe the Fed will make any dramatic moves on interest rates just because Warsh has taken the helm.
When setting interest rate targets, the FOMC is charged with keeping employment high and prices stable. It’s a challenging job because those goals can conflict with each other — if the panel lowers rates too much, the economy could heat up but inflation could soar, and if it sets rates too high in order to quell inflation, it could hurt economic growth.
The panel hiked rates in 2022 and 2023 to deal with inflation. Since then, it has taken a cautious approach to lowering them, cutting rates by a percentage point in late 2024 and another 0.75 points in late 2025. It has left rates steady in all three meetings this year, with employment numbers fairly stable and inflation still above the Fed’s 2% target. More recently, Powell has pointed to the U.S.’s war with Iran as a source of uncertainty and a reason to tread carefully.
The Fed is expected to keep rates stable for a while. Investors believe the probability of an interest rate change at any of this year’s five remaining meetings is below 40%, according to CME Group’s FedWatch. Bank of America analysts predicted last week the Fed will hold off on lowering rates until the second half of 2027, pointing to an uptick in inflation and strong jobs numbers.
On Tuesday, new federal data showed inflation surged to 3.8% year-over-year in April, the highest level since mid-2023, which some analysts believe could make a rate cut even less likely.
Warsh’s immediate goals on interest rates aren’t entirely clear.
He argued in favor of lower rates at various points last year, and has predicted that artificial intelligence could stem inflation by ushering in massive productivity gains, giving the Fed room for looser monetary policy. (At least one FOMC member, Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee, has argued that AI hype could cause more, not less, inflation.)
But during an earlier stint on the Fed board from 2006 to 2011, Warsh was known as more of a hawk, meaning he was wary of inflation and tended to support tighter policy.
Warsh has also called for a broader “regime change” to how the Fed operates. He has suggested that central bank officials communicate their views to the public and make definitive predictions too often, and has backed changes to everything from the size of the Fed’s balance sheet to how it regulates banks.
At a Senate hearing last month, Warsh said Mr. Trump hasn’t asked him to “predetermine, fix or decide on any interest rate decision.” He also told lawmakers he wants to listen to a diversity of views on the FOMC and favors “messier meetings than some.”
English thinks it’s unlikely that Warsh will push for lower rates immediately, noting that the economic outlook is uncertain and committee members seem divided right now.
“I don’t think he’s going to be able to get the committee there right away,” he said.
If Warsh wants lower rates immediately — which is not clear — Raskin says supporters of the move will need to make a “credible, analytically strong and disciplined case” that can “pass the laugh test.”
Kroszner worked with Warsh both on the Fed board and in the George W. Bush administration, with Kroszner serving on the Council of Economic Advisers while Warsh was at the National Economic Council. He called Warsh a “long-run strategic thinker” who “wants to bring people along.”
“He understands that to get things done, you need to … build a consensus around things,” Kroszner said. “You can’t just come in and say, ‘Off with their heads, I want to do this or I want to do that.’ That’s not going to be very effective.”