Fitch Ratings: Federal Reserve's independence key to US sovereign rating

Summary

Fitch Ratings stated that the Federal Reserve’s independence is a key supporting factor for the ‘AA+’ U.S. sovereign rating.Reuters+ 3 The agency will monitor governance and the Fed’s performance on inflation. This comes amid rising political pressure on the Fed from the Trump administration, including threats of legal action against Chair Powell, which has sparked market volatility and a “sell America” sentiment.Sina Finance+ 3 Former Fed chairs and Treasury secretaries have condemned the pressure as an “unprecedented attack” on the central bank’s independence.QQ News

Impact Analysis

So Fitch is basically firing a public warning shot at the administration. They’re formalizing what the market has been fearing—that political attacks on the Fed are now a tangible credit risk to the US sovereign rating. This isn’t just noise anymore; it validates the recent ‘sell America’ moves: dollar weakness, equity jitters, and the spike in gold.Sina Finance+ 2

When former Fed chairs start calling it an emerging-market-style attack, you know it’s serious.QQ News The agencies want you to focus on the Fed’s inflation track record, but the real story is the risk of institutional decay. Bottom line—this puts a floor under the flight-to-safety trade. The risk of a sovereign downgrade, while distant, is now officially on the table. It reinforces being long gold, which is acting less like an inflation hedge and more like a hedge against US institutional credibility risk.