President Donald Trump revived his criticism of the Federal Reserve in a private meeting Thursday with its chair, Jerome Powell, saying it was a mistake not to lower interest rates.

The meeting, which was organized at Trump’s request, is the first since the president returned to the White House.

Powell and Trump discussed how the economy was evolving with regards to inflation, the labor market and growth. Powell did not share his expectations for monetary policy, the Fed said in a statement.

He told the president that such decisions would “depend entirely on incoming economic information and what that means for the outlook,” according to the statement, and would be “based solely on careful, objective and nonpolitical analysis.”

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters Thursday that Trump expressed his belief to Powell that the Fed was making a mistake by not lowering interest rates.

The meeting comes at a fraught moment for the economy, which now faces a variety of risks stemming from Trump’s policies.

Since returning to the White House, the president has repeatedly imposed, paused and rolled back tariffs against America’s trading partners. Tariffs, which are taxes on imports, are broadly expected to slow growth while raising inflation.

Republicans are also seeking to push through sweeping tax cuts that risk raising the deficit at a time when U.S. government debt markets are on edge. That coupled with more aggressive efforts to deport immigrants has injected extreme uncertainty into the economic outlook.

The Fed is considering the net effect of these policies, which officials say will take time to filter across the economy. With the labor market still on solid footing, policymakers at the central bank argue that they can afford to be patient about restarting the interest rate cuts they put on pause in January after lowering borrowing costs by a full percentage point last year.

Traders in federal funds futures markets now expect the Fed could be on hold for the bulk of the year, delivering only one quarter-point rate cut by December.

The Fed’s wait-and-see approach has drawn the ire of the president, who has repeatedly demanded that the central bank lower interest rates. Trump has also gone after Powell personally, branding the Fed chair a “major loser” and “Mr. Too Late.” He at one point toyed with removing Powell, whom he elevated to Fed chair in his first term, but was urged by his own economic advisers against doing so for fear of sparking a financial panic.

— New York Times