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- Date published:
10:49 am, January 15th, 2026 - 27 comments
Categories: Donald Trump, nz first, winston peters -
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The United States of America is in a strange place.
Just this year:
This last example exemplifies how the Trump Regime has weaponised the DOJ to go after its enemies, which appears to include anyone who does not bow down to Trump’s demands. It nominally relates to Powell’s evidence given to the Senate Banking Committee where he responded to claims that the renovation of the Federal Reserve Building was outlandish.
From the Guardian:
In brief comments, which amounted to less than two minutes out of a two-hour session fielding questions from senators on the economy, Powell had said the renovations were needed for safety purposes on buildings that hadn’t undergone major renovations since the 1930s.
“There’s no VIP dining room, there’s no new marble,” he told senators. “We took down the old marble, we’re putting it back up. There are no special elevators, there’s just the old elevators.”
It is more than coincidental that Powell has upset Donald Trump by not reducing interest rates quicker. Trump has responded by getting the DOJ to investigate him for fraud which is as outlandish as it sounds.
But there is a New Zealand element to this story.
Newly appointed Reserve Bank Governor Anna Bremen decided to cosign a letter coordinated by the European Central Bank opposing the actions on Powell which said this:
We stand in full solidarity with the Federal Reserve System and its Chair Jerome H. Powell. The independence of central banks is a cornerstone of price, financial and economic stability in the interest of the citizens that we serve. It is therefore critical to preserve that independence, with full respect for the rule of law and democratic accountability. Chair Powell has served with integrity, focused on his mandate and an unwavering commitment to the public interest. To us, he is a respected colleague who is held in the highest regard by all who have worked with him.”
This letter has been signed by at least 14 Central Bankers.
This has caused Winston Peters to blast Bremen which I am sure will go down well with local Trumpians. From Radio New Zealand:
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has urged the Reserve Bank governor to stay in her lane when it comes to United States domestic politics.
Anna Breman signed a letter of support for Jerome Powell overnight, after the Federal Reserve chair said subpoenas against him are retaliation for serving the American public rather than the preferences of the president.
In a post on social media, Peters said the Reserve Bank had no role in US politics and should not involve itself.
“The Reserve Bank of New Zealand is statutorily independent of Central Government on matters of monetary policy. However, the RBNZ has no role, nor should it involve itself, in US domestic politics.
“We remind the Governor to stay in her New Zealand lane and stick to domestic monetary policy. That would have been the advice of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade if the Governor had sought its advice, which she did not.”
Peters might have a point if it was not for the absolute supine way that New Zealand has treated the United States. And it should be remembered that the Governor is independent of the Government and cannot be required to do or not do anything. Her independence needs to mean something and if she and a number of other Central Bankers are concerned about the outrageous actions taken against one of their colleagues she should be able to talk about it.
And there is a local effect to Trump’s actions. The US Dollar has fallen and interest rate indicators increased following Powell’s speech. This will affect economies throughout the world. Wanting there to be stability in the markets is directly relevant to Breman’s role.
It would help if the Government actually said something about America’s actions rather than just saying it is actively monitoring the situation which was its response to the Venexuela invasion. They should follow Powell’s and Bremen’s responses and stand up to Trump. This continued process of servile obedience is getting us and the world nowhere.
Anna Breman is entitled to have a free hand when it comes to monetary policy and supervision of the banking system etc., but I don't think she is free to say whatever she likes about political goings on in another country.
PS: If anyone should comment it should be the government.
It is within her ambit because she can comment on matters that directly affect her job and Trump going after Powell will have a direct effect on her job. Besides she has statutory independence.
Can't agree with you here Micky! Anna Bremen is supporting the wider, global, neoliberal ideology on central bank independence as part of the lockstep centrist consensus on economic policy of our current elites that has given rise to right wing populism and Trumpist authoritarianism in the first place.
Central bank independence is relatively recent ideological outcome in democracies outside the USA – in Australia since about 1996, the UK since 1997, the European Central Bank since 1998, NZ since 1990 and after a generation of it being a cornerstone of the elite consensus we can (especially if you compare our economic performance with the likes of China, where there is no pretence of central bank independence) surely declare the proposition that politicians can't be trusted to run the economy and technocrats can do a better job an utterly failed one.
Peter's is firing a warning shot that comfortable neoliberal assumptions about neoliberal economic orthodoxy are starting to fray from widespread popular revolt, and we on the left would be wise to understand what he is saying or we'll end up fruitlessly "governing the void" while the neoliberal elite rapidly turns to a future as imagined by Musk, Thiel, Trump, Farage and Seymour and ACT – a post truth techno-fascist police state run by and for oligarchs.
Can't agree there Sanc – this is not about neoliberalism orthodoxy. (although that may be a side issue). Primarily this is about Trump and his acolytes attacking his enemies.
This indictment is a trumped up charge by Trump shoe in for US Attorney in Washington DC Jenni Pirro – ex Faux News! Obviously an attempt to continue to curry favour with the MAGA crowd.
we'll end up fruitlessly "governing the void" while the neoliberal elite rapidly turns to a future as imagined by Musk, Thiel, Trump, Farage and Seymour and ACT – a post truth techno-fascist police state run by and for oligarchs.
Yes its heading that way.
Rubbish, Peters was doing nothing of the sort. What he said is what he meant, he was asking for MFAT to be informed.
As for the USA, Trump wants to direct domestic monetary policy for partisan purposes (here mid-terms) – because he fears being impeached.
Trump is trying to make government oligarch friendly/adjacent – via the next stage of tyranny, technocracy (a new feudalism enforcement).
Control of monetary policy to sugar coat the economy until this is established is a real threat to the future of democracy in the USA.
His unilateral foreign policy imperialism makes that an issue for all of us.
There is an irony to this, because empires decline with debt and currency, but the risk is that a technocracy (built around US multinationals) is established first.
The two most concerning signs
The UK buying into Palantir tech and US data centres AI dominance etc which undermines any independence (and this places the secular democratic EU at grave risk). It's king sitting in a chair in Rome is indicative of some new western Christendom imperialism, one based around a new world technology centred God and mammon supremacy over the people of the nation states.
Thiel, Musk et al
There is an irony to this, because empires decline with debt and currency degradation.
I think this is where the critique risks getting lazy.
Pointing to China as evidence that central bank independence has “failed” smuggles in an authoritarian model that functions by suppressing dissent, labour power, and political accountability. China’s economic power isn’t a counter-example so much as a warning as it rests on an authoritarian police state that can impose costs, erase opposition, and bypass democratic consent: precisely the conditions we should be opposing.
Central bank independence wasn’t dreamed up as a neoliberal power grab; it emerged out of the very real economic failures of the 1970s and 80s, when governments responded to crisis with blunt, short-term fixes that produced inflation, instability, and ultimately weakened labour. Pretending that history didn’t happen isn’t radical: it’s careless.
The harder, more honest left critique isn’t “abolish independence and let politicians run the presses,” but asking who independence is for, from whom, and under what democratic constraints.
Any economy worth building, whether socialist or otherwise, still needs predictable rules and credible institutions.
If we don’t do that work, we don’t end up with democratic economic sovereignty. We end up oscillating between technocratic insulation and authoritarian shortcuts.
And that’s a trap we should all be smart enough to avoid.
Statutory independence in respect of what? It's true Trump should not be attacking Powell they way he is but that has nothing to do with "central bank independence" in the way the term is normally understood. It’s more of a governance matter.
I agree with Sanctuary.
Central banks are not neutral technocratic institutions. They are a core pillar of the capitalist system as it currently exists. Their primary mandate has consistently been to protect financial stability, asset values, and the interests of capital, often at the direct expense of working people. Policies such as inflation targeting, austerity enforcement, and interest rate hikes are routinely justified as economic necessities, yet they disproportionately suppress wages, increase unemployment, and discipline labour while leaving structural inequality intact.
The repeated crises of recent decades make clear that this system has failed working people. When markets collapse, central banks mobilise vast resources to rescue banks and investors; when workers struggle with rising living costs, housing insecurity, or stagnant pay, the response is restraint and “painful but necessary” adjustment. This is not accidental. It reflects whose interests the system is designed to serve. Any serious project for economic justice must therefore question the power, mandates, and political role of central banking within capitalism itself, rather than treating it as an apolitical or inevitable institution.
Weaponising the DOJ is a different issue which I agree with you on.
Weaponising the DOJ is a different issue which I agree with you on
Yes. "Central Bank independence" is an ambiguous term": It can mean free from Government interference, or it can mean not controlled by Government.
Isn't she just showing solidarity with her US counterpart? Shouldn't the independence the RBG has in NZ indicate to the US that it's not our government that's expressing concern?
Argentina, Russia, Turkey, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, ‘Murica…
Justin Wolfers
@JustinWolfers
What can history teach us about what happens when a populist strongman with an idiosyncratic taste for low interest rates undermines central bank independence?
https://xcancel.com/JustinWolfers/status/2010528264389800197
You seem to be generalising from a particular instance.
Five examples of the perils of politisised central bank policies but sure, generalizing….
//
Replying to all of the above (and reply on TS isn't working) Bremen would have a good point if she was still able to take employment into account. Unfortunately the god awful government we have had made employment levels irrelevant to the RB governors role.
So I'm with Sanc on this.
Thanks to Sanc and MJR for putting things better than I could.
If I were an optimistic dreamer, we would want Bremer to be able to oversee the issuing of money when Hipkins takes that task away from the foreign owned banks…
MS is right. The Governor of the Reserve Bank is either independent or not. In this case they are. That might not suit Winnie, but tough shit!
Winston Peters was one of the original supporters of Reserve Bank independence, a practice that has spread globally to be seen as normal for at least a couple of decades. As a National MP in 1989, he was one of a Parliament that voted unanimously in favour of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act (1989), which guaranteed independence for the Governor setting monetary policy. He voted for Reserve Bank independence again in 2018 when he joined with Labour and the Greens in Government to amend the 1989 Act to add “supporting maximum sustainable employment,” as one of the bank’s mandates" until that mandate was removed by the CoC in December 2023. Anna Breman is not an outlier. I can't see Australia, Canada, UK and the other countries who signed up to this at a collective meeting of central bank governors having a pathetic old grump giving them the biffo.
A bit of road rage by Peters because he thought that Breman had cut into his lane and (over)stepped onto his
turftoe. Did Trump like his post on X? If not, it was all in vain for NZ, but not for NZF.That CB Governors would declare some solidarity with Powell is unsurprising. They share a governance role under which there are agreed rules (such as MFN status in trade which the Trump tariff regime has disrupted).
Given Peters long standing support for the independence of CB's, his criticism does seem to be based around lack of consultation with MFAT and his now well known wariness of offence to the White House administration.
I’m broadly in favour of central bank independence as a net good. Not because central banks are neutral or apolitical, but because insulating monetary policy from day-to-day political calculus helps protect the basic operating conditions of the economy.
That doesn’t mean central banks are beyond critique, or that their mandates can’t be wrong or incomplete. It does mean that allowing short-term electoral or partisan pressures to directly shape interest-rate and supervisory decisions has, historically, produced worse outcomes.
Independence is a constraint on political impulses, not a claim to technocratic infallibility.
On that basis, a foreign minister publicly disciplining an independent governor for speaking about actions that directly threaten global financial stability seems misplaced. If we expect the Governor to take responsibility for monetary and financial stability, she has to be able to speak when those conditions are being undermined: especially when it’s politically awkward.
If the concern is process, that she should have consulted MFAT, that’s a separate and legitimate discussion. But MFAT’s role is to manage the government’s diplomatic response, not to police speech by independent statutory officers.
Independence is a constraint on political impulses, not a claim to technocratic infallibility.
The Peoples Bank of China (China's Central Bank), is, presumably, free from "political impulses", since it is neither independent nor unsuccessful.
Oh no: It’s managed entirely by political impulses.
The People’s Bank of China isn’t insulated from politics. It’s insulated from the Chinese public. It answers upward to the CPC, not outward to democratic accountability.
If Xi decides the cash rate is 2.3%, it’s 2.3%.. If that creates economic pain for ordinary people, that isn’t a policy problem. It’s a policing problem. And if powerful corporates push back, the regime has a long record of discovering “corruption” when it becomes politically convenient.
Once you block out the Trumpian noise, you’ll hear the swishing sounds of the undercurrent of NZ politics that will surface soon in a torrent of Election Year.
By Joel MacManus at The Spinoff (https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/16-01-2026/winston-peters-vs-the-reserve-bank).
Government control (politicisation) is different from "interference", which is what Trump is engaged in at present.