Trump news – live: President explodes in astonishing attack on Federal Reserve and orders US companies to cease trading with China 'immediately'

Donald Trump has launched an extraordinary attack on the Federal Reserve and its chairman Jerome Powell and ordered US companies to cease trading with China “immediately” as the rival superpower upped the ante in their ongoing trade war by hiking tariffs on $75bn (£61bn) of American goods.

After Mr Powell addressed a central bank symposium in Wyoming and declined to say he would cut interest rates in accordance with the president’s wishes, the commander-in-chief exploded on Twitter and asked who is the “the bigger enemy” of the US, Mr Powell or Chinese premier Xi Jinping.

“Our Country has lost, stupidly, Trillions of Dollars with China over many years,” he ranted, ordering American businesses to seek alternatives to working with China and telling US delivery companies like FedEx and UPS to “SEARCH FOR & REFUSE all deliveries of Fentanyl from China”, blaming Beijing for the US opioid crisis.

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