2026-07-14T10:07:05.169Z / 路透社
华盛顿，7月14日（路透社）——今年5月美联储主席凯文·沃什的就职仪式上，总统唐纳德·特朗普对这位他提名的美国央行掌舵人毫不吝惜赞美之词，他挥舞着拳头，与聚集在白宫的政府官员一同鼓掌。
“放手去干，”特朗普说道，当时沃什走上讲台发表了约7分钟的讲话，时长仅为特朗普发言的三分之一。讲话中，沃什既称赞了总统，也阐述了自己对美联储的抱负。
正如前美联储主席杰罗姆·鲍威尔以重建美联储与国会的关系而闻名，沃什能否继续获得特朗普的信任，可能会成为一项重要资产——他将在当前经济形势难以预判的背景下管理货币政策，并监督一项涉及美联储和美国关键议题的评估工作。
预计沃什将在周二和周三国会 lawmakers 举行的两天听证会上，进一步阐述他对美联储的计划以及对经济的看法。此次听证会也将表明，他上任头几周的表现是否缓解了人们的担忧：人们担心沃什非但不会管控特朗普，要么会满足总统持续提出的降息要求，要么会像鲍威尔任期那样遭遇白宫的强烈反对，最终导致这位时任美联储主席遭到一项早已撤销的刑事调查。
至少从最初来看，沃什的初步举措似乎更多地表现出与特朗普保持距离。他上周任命的一系列特别工作组人员，以专业水平见长，且没有其他政府机构任命的那种意识形态或党派色彩浓厚的人物。
“如果有人担心他会成为‘提线木偶’，那么在美联储宣布维持利率不变后的首次新闻发布会后，这种担忧应该已经消散了，”约翰·霍普金斯大学经济学教授、鲍威尔前高级顾问乔恩·福斯特表示。当时沃什的言论，若说有什么倾向的话，更偏向于维持现有利率水平。
福斯特称，此次特别工作组的任命“真正巩固了这一观点”，沃什挑选了一批知名经济学家、企业高管和央行官员，他们大概率会按照沃什的意图行事——作为关键辩论的中立仲裁者，这些辩论有些是新议题，有些则是长期存在的。
沃什定于美国东部时间周二上午10点（格林威治标准时间14:00）在共和党控制的美国众议院金融服务委员会露面，这是他作为美联储主席首次与该议院的议员举办公开听证会。
这位新任美联储主席将于美国东部时间周三上午10点在参议院银行委员会作证。该委员会同样由共和党掌控，于4月底以党派投票结果推荐沃什获得全体参议院批准，民主党人则特别担忧他与特朗普的关系，以及在特朗普明确表示只会提名自己确信会降息的人选后，沃什能否真正保持独立。
沃什尚未表现出很快就会降息的迹象。
“我认为他通过释放鸽派信号获得了总统的支持，”潘兴街宏观经济咨询公司首席美国经济学家塞缪尔·汤姆斯表示，“但另一方面，如今沃什已经上任，他有条件采取长远、公正的视角……鲍威尔成功证明了美联储主席可以多么独立，政治干预的程度终归有限。我确信沃什会留意特朗普的继任者可能是谁，他的任期和连任前景都岌岌可危。”
早期任命未明显倾向特朗普阵营
沃什甚至开始对部分议题采取更有条件的表述方式，比如人工智能——在获得提名前，他曾表示人工智能可以降低通胀并推动降息。
他在听证会前上周提交给国会的货币政策报告指出，人工智能投资正在推高部分商品价格，其他美联储政策制定者也注意到，人工智能可能推动软件成本飙升，从新的方向加剧通胀压力。
沃什也承认，人工智能带来的供给侧和生产率提升的时机尚不确定，而其对资本、熟练建筑劳动力和基础设施需求的影响已经显现。
他的观点与前美联储理事斯蒂芬·米兰形成鲜明对比。米兰去年由特朗普任命，临时填补美联储理事会的一个席位。米兰还曾担任白宫经济顾问委员会主席，在其约8个月的任期内，他出席的六次美联储会议每次都主张降息或更大幅度降息，并每次都投下反对票。
尽管沃什与其他同事不同，并未在6月16日至17日的美联储会议上提交利率预测，且表示今后也不会这么做，因为他反对这类“前瞻性指引”，但他在新闻发布会上称，他担任美联储主席后的首次会议上，仅提出了一项政策提案，并未讨论降息事宜。
除了特别工作组的任命，他的其他早期聘用人员也未明显倾向于特朗普阵营或“让美国再次伟大”运动。
沃什以合同形式聘用的顾问之一保罗·温弗里，曾为颇具争议的《2025计划》文件撰写章节，其中包括废除美联储或取消其充分就业使命等主张，但他后来与这些观点保持距离，称其是其他学者思想的综合。
曾与沃什在斯坦福大学胡佛研究所共事的保守派政策分析师丹尼尔·海尔被任命为临时政策顾问。
沃什还聘请了约翰·麦康奈尔担任演讲稿撰写人。麦康奈尔是“前特朗普时期”的共和党人，曾担任前总统乔治·W·布什及其副总统迪克·切尼的高级顾问和演讲稿撰写人。
从美联储内部 staff 中，沃什召回了资深经济学家丹尼尔·科维茨和埃里克·恩斯特罗姆。科维茨曾在沃什2006年至2011年担任美联储理事期间与其共事。
和那些起初得到特朗普赏识但后来失宠的人一样，沃什与总统的关系可能在未来几个月面临考验——例如，如果通胀持续高企，而同事们支持加息的呼声高涨到不容忽视的程度。特朗普政府也可能继续试图解雇美联储理事会的民主党任命者，包括鲍威尔，这将让沃什面临两难境地：要么像他的前任那样维护美联储的独立性，要么激怒总统。
但至少就目前而言，沃什似乎在兑现特朗普在就职仪式上的承诺——当时特朗普告诉他“要完全独立……别盯着我看”。
“总统说他希望凯文做自己认为正确的事。我不知道这种情况能持续多久，”前克利夫兰美联储主席洛蕾塔·梅斯特说道。但“到目前为止一切顺利”，梅斯特补充道，她将新成立的美联储特别工作组的人员构成描述为“非常有前景”。
Fed’s Warsh heads to Congress after tentative steps away from Trump
2026-07-14T10:07:05.169Z / Reuters
WASHINGTON, July 14 (Reuters) – At Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh’s swearing-in ceremony in May, President Donald Trump was effusive about his pick to lead the U.S. central bank, pumping his fist and applauding alongside administration officials gathered in the White House.
“Go get ’em,” Trump said as Warsh took the podium for a roughly seven-minute address that was only a third as long as Trump’s remarks and blended compliments of the president with the new Fed chief’s ambitions for the central bank.
Just as former Fed Chair Jerome Powell was noted for rebuilding the central bank’s relationship with Congress, Warsh’s potential to keep Trump’s trust could prove an important asset as he manages monetary policy through a difficult-to-read moment in the economy, and oversees a review process touching on key issues for the Fed and the country.
Warsh is expected to further draw out his plans for the Fed and thoughts about the economy during two days of testimony before lawmakers in Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday. The testimony could also show if his first weeks in office have eased concerns that, far from managing Trump, Warsh will either meet the president’s persistent demands for lower interest rates or face the same blowback from the White House that clouded Powell’s tenure and ultimately put the then-Fed chief under a since-abandoned criminal investigation.
At the outset at least, Warsh’s initial steps are seen as showing more distance from Trump than not, with his appointments to a set of task forces last week noted for the level of expertise and the absence of the sort of ideological or partisan figures brought in at other agencies.
“If people were concerned he would be a ‘sock puppet,’ those fears should have been gone after the first press conference” following the Fed’s decision to hold rates steady, when Warsh’s comments were seen, if anything, as tilted toward keeping them that way, said Jon Faust, a former top adviser to Powell and now an economics professor at Johns Hopkins University.
The task force appointments, “really cement that view,” tapping a group of well-known economists, corporate executives and central bankers likely to operate largely as Warsh says he intends — as neutral arbiters of key debates, some new and some ongoing, Faust said.
Warsh is scheduled to appear before the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) on Tuesday, his first public session as Fed chief with lawmakers from that chamber.
The new Fed chief will appear before the Senate Banking Committee at 10 a.m. EDT on Wednesday. That committee, also controlled by Republicans, recommended Warsh for approval to the full Senate on a party-line vote in late April, with Democrats expressing particular concerns about his relationship with Trump and whether he would be truly independent after a selection process in which the president said he would only nominate someone he was certain would cut rates.
Warsh has shown no signs that a rate cut will happen soon.
“I agree that he got the president’s support by giving him dovish signals,” said Samuel Tombs, chief U.S. economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. “The counterpoint is that now that Warsh is in position, he has the luxury of taking a long, impartial view … Powell successfully showed how independent a Fed chair can be, how political interference can only get so far. I’m sure Warsh has one eye on who Trump’s successor might be,” with his legacy and possible reappointment both at stake.
EARLY HIRES HAVE SHOWN NO PARTICULAR LEAN TO TRUMP SPHERE
If anything, Warsh has begun talking in more conditional terms about some of the things, like artificial intelligence, that before his nomination he said could lower inflation and lead to lower rates.
The monetary policy report submitted to Congress last week ahead of his testimony noted that AI investment is pushing up some prices, and other Fed policymakers have noted how it may be feeding a jump in software costs that is adding inflationary pressure from a new direction.
Warsh has also acknowledged that the timing of supply-side and productivity gains from AI is uncertain, while the impact on demand for capital, skilled construction labor, and infrastructure is occurring now.
His view contrasts with that of former Fed Governor Stephen Miran, who was appointed by Trump last year to temporarily fill a seat on the central bank’s Board of Governors. Miran, who also served as the head of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, advocated either a rate cut or a larger rate cut at each of the six Fed meetings he attended during his roughly eight-month tenure, and dissented each time.
While Warsh, unlike his colleagues, did not submit an interest rate projection at the Fed’s June 16-17 meeting and does not plan to do so, since he opposes that sort of “forward guidance,” he said at his press conference that there was only a single policy proposal on the table at his first meeting as Fed chief — with no discussion of a rate cut.
Along with the task force appointments, his other early hires have shown no particular lean to Trump’s sphere or the Make America Great Again movement.
Paul Winfree, one of the advisers Warsh hired on contract, wrote a chapter for the controversial Project 2025 document that included ideas such as abolishing the Fed or dropping its full employment mandate, though he later distanced himself from proposals he said were a synthesis of thoughts from other scholars.
Daniel Heil, a conservative policy analyst who worked with Warsh at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, was tapped as interim policy adviser.
Warsh also hired John McConnell as a speechwriter. McConnell is a “pre-Trump” Republican who was a top adviser and writer for former President George W. Bush and his vice president, Dick Cheney.
From the Fed staff, Warsh enlisted veteran economists Daniel Covitz, who worked with Warsh during his time as a Fed governor from 2006 to 2011, and Eric Engstrom.
Like others who started out on Trump’s good side but later lost favor, Warsh’s standing with the president could be tested in coming months — if inflation persists, for example, and support among Warsh’s colleagues for rate hikes becomes too great to ignore. The Trump administration could also continue trying to fire Democratic appointees to the Fed board, including Powell, putting Warsh in the situation of either defending the institution, as his predecessor did, or angering the president.
But for now, at least, Warsh seems to be taking Trump at his word when the president at his swearing-in told him to “be totally independent. … Don’t look at me.”
“The president says he wants Kevin to do what he thinks is best. I don’t know if you can say how long that will last,” said former Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester. But “so far so good,” said Mester, who described the composition of the new Fed task forces as “very promising.”
