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America

Trump to nominate Christopher Waller, Judy Shelton to Fed Board

Washington, July 3 

US President Donald Trump has said he intends to nominate Christopher Waller and Judy Shelton to the Federal Reserve Board.

Trump made the announcement on Twitter on Tuesday. His decisions came as both former nominees, economist Stephen Moore and pizza-chain executive Herman Cain, withdrew themselves from consideration, Xinhua reported.

"I am pleased to announce that it is my intention to nominate Christopher Waller, Ph. D., Executive VP and Director of Research, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Missouri, to be on the board of the Federal Reserve," Trump tweeted, adding that prior to his current position, Waller served as a professor and chair of economics at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

"I am pleased to announce that it is my intention to nominate Judy Shelton, Ph. D., US Executive Dir, European Bank of Reconstruction & Development to be on the board of the Federal Reserve," the US President said in a subsequent tweet. 

He said Shelton is a founding member of right-wing advocacy group Empower America and has served on the board of directors of Hilton Hotels.

The seven-member Fed Board now has two vacancies. Whoever is nominated by the president needs to be confirmed by the Senate.

Shelton, a conservative economist who served as an economic advisor to Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign, has signalled her clear intention to lower the benchmark interest rate.

"I would lower rates as fast, as efficiently, as expeditiously as possible," she was quoted by the Washington Post as saying in an interview on June 19.

The scholar suggested a "glide path" to take the interest rate to zero in "maybe one to two years," the post reported.

Trump has long been criticizing the Fed for not adopting rate cuts, saying on June 23 that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell "made a mistake" by raising the rates "far too fast."

While saying that Fed officials will "act as appropriate" to sustain economic expansion, Powell defended the Fed's independence by stressing that Congress has "insulated" the central bank from short-term political pressure.