Trump Admin Cuts off Emergency Lending Programs, Overruling Fed Chair.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has asked the Federal Reserve to return $455 billion in unused pandemic program funds.
A number of pandemic lending programs are set to expire on Dec.
31.
Mnuchin made the request on Thursday, saying that the programs "have clearly achieved their objective.".
Fed Chair Jerome Powell criticized the request, preferring the funds continue to be used "as a backstop for our still-strained and vulnerable economy.".
Powell has stated that it is too soon to draw the pandemic programs to a close.
When the right time comes, and I don't think that time is yet or very soon, we will put those tools away, Jerome Powell, Fed Chair, via CNN.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also rebuked the Trump administration's request, saying that it "unnecessarily ties the hands of the incoming administration."