Christine Lagarde's World Has Been Upended by Hard Politics

Central bank independence is a subject that has leapt from the dusty precincts of academia to center stage because of Donald Trump’s attacks on the Federal Reserve. Jerome Powell’s Western peers have rallied to his cause. They fear a hostile Fed takeover would destabilize markets, forcing the cost of US debt to rise and creating doubts about whether the country would provide dollar liquidity abroad in any future crisis.

But something else is at play for worried central bankers: whether their own freedom from political meddling can be maintained in a Trumpified world. Rather than simply complain, they should be ready to debate their policy positions at such a charged historical moment.