“We should get somebody in there that’s going to lower interest rates,” Donald Trump said Tuesday, during one of his televised cabinet meetings.

At this point, Trump and his sycophants aren’t even trying anymore when it comes to feigning respect for central bank independence. Trump believes he should be able to dictate the course of US monetary policy and a lot of his cabinet and supporters on Capitol Hill would be just fine with that if it’s what he wants.

Jerome Powell’s in the way, though. Trump’s mulled any number of options for removing Powell, but he seems apprised that doing so would very likely trigger a market panic, fleeting or not. It’d be better, Trump reckons, if Powell would just step down.

That isn’t going to happen, but it won’t be for lack of trying on Trump’s part. Currently, he and FHFA chief Bill Pulte (whose presence at the agency underscores the administration’s no-cares attitude vis-à-vis optics) are pushing the idea that Powell should step down for lying to Congress about cost overruns tied to renovations at the Marriner Eccles building.

There’s no evidence that I’m aware of to support the notion that Powell misled Congress about interior decorating decisions, but lack of evidence hasn’t stopped Trump before. “He should resign immediately,” Trump said Tuesday, during the same cabinet meeting. The fact that he’s resorting to such a farcical gambit to pressure Powell testifies loudly to concerns about the integrity of America’s institutions, including and especially the Fed.

Cue the figure below from this year’s UBS reserve manager survey, conducted from May to June. Some 40 central banks participated.

As you can see, the question was about institutional risks in the US under Trump, and I gotta tell you: Those are scary tallies.

Taken at face value, those results suggest there’s pervasive concern at foreign central banks about everything from Fed independence to US capital controls to the dissolution of societal bonds in America.

On the very next page of the slide deck, UBS presented responses to a survey question about policy actions Trump could take “in addition to tariffs.” Have a look:

Nearly half believe a debt restructuring’s possible (i.e., a “Mar-a-Lago Accord”-type scheme foisted upon America’s allies), while a third think Trump and the GOP might try to abolish Fed independence altogether.

It wasn’t all existential gloom and doom in the poll, though. Eight in 10 respondents said the dollar’s likely to retain its reserve currency status, and nearly three quarters said a “Mar-a-Lago Accord” to weaken the greenback, while possible, is unlikely over the next 12 months.

Sill, views on Treasurys and the dollar were best described as apathetic. When asked “How will demand for US debt develop going forward?” more than three in four reserve managers said “Demand will stagnate and US yields will gradually rise.” Queried on demand for the dollar itself (which is in most respects the same question), nearly eight in 10 said demand will stagnate and that the dollar will remain “broadly at current levels.”

Oh, and 86% said “the MAGA agenda” — inclusive of tariffs, deregulation, lower taxes, cheap energy and DOGE cost-cutting — won’t deliver a sustainable long-term boost to US growth.