WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he has no plans to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, but said he wants interest rates to be lower, remarks that could defuse tensions over the central bank chief’s future that have rattled investors.

“I have no intention of firing him,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday. “I would like to see him be a little more active in terms of his idea to lower interest rates,” he added.

Trump’s statement was the first de-escalation after days of withering criticisms he has lobbed at Powell for not further cutting interest rates since Trump resumed office in January.

The broadsides were often accompanied by threatening remarks, such as last week’s social media posting that Powell’s termination as Fed chair “cannot come fast enough,” that spooked financial markets that view the Fed’s independence as underpinning its credibility on the global financial stage.

But while he seems to have set aside those threats for now, his criticisms of Fed rate policy remain just as pointed.

“We think that it’s a perfect time to lower the rate, and we’d like to see our chairman be early or on time, as opposed to late,” Trump said.

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(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler and Anna Driver)