WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve is nearly certain to keep its key interest rate unchanged at its policy meeting this week, just a few days after President Donald Trump said he would soon demand lower rates.

Fed officials, led by Chair Jerome Powell, have cut their rate for three meetings in a row, to about 4.3% from a two-decade high of 5.3%. Yet with several recent economic reports showing healthy hiring and some progress on inflation, policymakers have said the pace of rate cuts will slow this year. Some have suggested that few reductions are needed at all.

While the two-day meeting that ends Wednesday may be uneventful, it nevertheless kicks off what is likely to be a turbulent year for the Fed. Trump made clear Thursday that he expects to comment on interest-rate policy, saying: “I know interest rates much better than they do.”

At the same time, Fed officials are navigating a delicate period for the economy: They want to keep borrowing costs high enough to push inflation back to their 2% target without keeping them too high for too long and plunging the economy into a recession. Annual inflation was 2.4% in November.

The last time he was in the White House, Trump threatened to fire Powell, whom he appointed in late 2017, but he has more recently backed off such threats. Powell’s term as chair ends in May 2026.

Until then, Trump’s comments suggest that he expects to regularly second-guess the Fed in public, despite a decadeslong tradition among previous presidents of taking a hands-off approach. Then-President Joe Biden reappointed Powell in a nod to central bank independence from politics.