Economics

Fed Rate Hikes May Have Already Cost Trump $5 Million a Year

  • Took out $340 million in variable-rate loans from 2012 to 2015
  • Trump’s net worth dropped about 7 percent over two years

Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

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President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s interest-rate increases as a drag on U.S. economic growth. They’re also cutting into his own fortune.

Every time the Fed raises rates, Trump’s payments on some $340 million in variable-rate loans go up. Since his January 2017 inauguration, the Fed’s steady rate hikes may have added a cumulative $5.1 million a year to his debt service costs, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of the president’s financial disclosures and property records.