Powell is not going to do anything,” Siegel said in an interview. “Trump, I think, is going to step up the escalation,” he said later.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will push back at his press conference on Wednesday on calls from the White House and many on Wall Street for interest-rate cuts, economists say.

Even so, the Fed will almost certainly leave its key rate unchanged at about 4.3% when it meets Tuesday and Wednesday. Powell and many of the other 18 officials that sit on the Fed’s rate-setting committee have said they want to see how Trump’s tariffs affect the economy before making any moves.