#鲍威尔发言 The Federal Reserve decided to keep the benchmark interest rate unchanged at its latest policy meeting, marking the fourth consecutive time the central bank has remained on hold. Fed Chairman Powell emphasized at the press conference that while recent inflationary pressures have eased, the decision-makers need to see more economic data to confirm that inflation is consistently falling toward the 2% target before considering initiating a rate-cutting cycle. According to the Fed's latest economic forecast summary for 2025, officials expect two rate cuts of 25 basis points each to take place next year. This cautious stance has drawn strong criticism from former President Trump, who recently publicly labeled Powell's decisions as "foolish" and argued that the Fed should aggressively cut rates by 2 percentage points to stimulate U.S. economic growth through loose monetary policy. These comments have reignited the debate between the White House and the Fed over the independence of monetary policy, reflecting the potential influence of political factors in an election year on central bank decisions. Currently, the market generally expects the Fed to begin gradually easing monetary policy in the second half of this year after obtaining more certainty about falling inflation.