From the moment he returned to office, US President Donald Trump has charted an economic course for the United States based on his deep personal convictions, blending a strong desire for trade deals with protectionist zeal and a firm conviction that the US had long been taken advantage of by its global partners. To advance these convictions, he has surrounded himself with a team of officials who either genuinely shared them or quickly realized that their own professional survival depended on emulating and praising them.
This blurring of the lines between his personal convictions and the tools of institutional power could have far-reaching, long-term repercussions, perhaps most prominently through his attempts to reshape or even seize total control of the Federal Reserve, which since its creation has managed (with limited exceptions) to shield itself from political interference and pressure.
