Kevin Warsh can juice US economic growth to 15%: Trump

Quartz · President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office on August 14, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Joseph Zeballos-Roig

Wed, February 11, 2026 at 12:00 AM GMT+9 1 min read

President Donald Trump has sky-high expectations for Kevin Warsh, his nominee to lead the Federal Reserve. He believes Warsh can help supercharge U.S. economic growth to 15%.

During a Fox Business interview, the president said that if Warsh “does the job he’s capable of,” there’s no reason to believe the U.S. economy won’t expand at a staggering pace.

“We can grow at 15%, I think more than that,” Trump said in an interview that will air later on Tuesday. "I think he is going to be great, and he’s a really high quality person.”

It is not clear over which timeframe Trump expected the U.S. economy to grow at that speed, whether annually or something else. For example, the Congressional Budget Office has projected the U.S. economy will grow 1.9% in 2026 and maintain a similar pace through the end of Trump’s second term.

The comments reflect the enormous pressure that Warsh may be under if he’s ultimately confirmed by the Senate to lead the Fed later this year. Trump is pinning his hopes on Warsh to lower interest rates much as he did when picking Powell for the job in 2017.

He ultimately began despising Powell for keeping the central bank independent in adjusting interest rates, rather than steering them in his preferred direction: downward.

Most investors believe the Fed will cut interest rates twice this year.

At their first meeting of the year in January, Fed policymakers held off on more rate cuts with most believing the economy is on solid footing with low unemployment. Others remain concerned about a stubborn inflation and a softening labor market, given some large companies like Amazon continue laying off thousands of workers.

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