Kevin Warsh declines to hint at July Fed rate decision

Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh declined to signal what the central bank might do at its July meeting, appearing Wednesday on a panel at the ECB Forum on Central Banking in Portugal.

"We're all in the price stability business, that might not be our only business, but if there was a common thing I heard over the last couple of days, it was open-mindedness on these questions of AI, open-mindedness on productivity, but we've all looked around, and we've seen that prices are too high," Warsh said in in remarks reported by CNBC.

His appearance Wednesday was only Warsh's second time addressing the public since his confirmation in May, with a post-meeting news conference two weeks earlier being the sole prior occasion.

Rounding out the panel were ECB President Christine Lagarde, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey, and Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem, with CNBC's Sara Eisen moderating.

Interest rates at the Fed have remained unchanged throughout the year as officials assess how durably inflation has taken hold alongside other economic considerations. The ECB broke from that pattern, lifting its key rate by 25 basis points in a bid to curb rising prices. Both the Bank of England and Bank of Canada similarly left rates unchanged this year after a round of cuts in 2025.

Warsh's reluctance to hint at the July decision fits a pattern he has established since taking charge of the central bank's first rate-setting meeting in June. At that meeting, policymakers voted to hold the benchmark rate steady at 3.5% to 3.75%. Warsh also announced 5 task forces to re-examine how the Fed operates, covering areas including communications, inflation, and productivity measurement.

A striking shift in the internal composition of Fed opinion also emerged from that June meeting: 9 of 19 Fed officials forecast a rate hike by year's end, compared with none who held that view in March. The change reflected mounting inflation pressures tied to the Iran War, which drove up costs across energy, commodities, and groceries.

One of Warsh's stated priorities is pulling back on forward guidance — the practice of signaling future rate moves to help investors anticipate policy decisions. At his June press conference, he described economic forecasting as "not well suited to the current policy conjecture" and released an unusually brief FOMC statement of just 132 words. He also declined to participate in the Fed's so-called dot plot, the quarterly chart showing where individual officials expect rates to go.

President Donald Trump, who has pushed for lower rates for more than a year, indicated he is giving Warsh room to operate. "We have a very good guy over there now, so I'm guided by what he wants to do," Trump said at the time.