Trump taps University of Minnesota professor to lead White House economic council

Emma Nelson, Star Tribune on Apr 22, 2026

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A University of Minnesota professor is President Donald Trump’s pick to chair the White House Council of Economic Advisers, a critical role in the administration’s economic policy decisions.

Christopher Phelan is a professor and former chair of the University’s economics department. He is also an adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. If the U.S. Senate confirms his nomination, he will join the administration at a time when Americans are increasingly pessimistic about the economy and Trump’s handling of it.

Phelan would succeed Stephen Miran, whom Trump successfully nominated to the Fed’s Board of Governors last year. Vice Chairman Pierre Yared has served as acting chairman.

The University’s economics department described Phelan in a statement Tuesday, April 21, as “a leading scholar in macroeconomic theory, monetary economics, government reputation and economic policy.”

“Professor Phelan’s nomination continues a longstanding University of Minnesota tradition — rooted in its land-grant mission — of bringing rigorous economic scholarship to bear on public policy," the statement said.

Phelan declined to comment through a department spokeswoman Wednesday, April 22.

Fellow economics professor V.V. Chari, a longtime colleague and collaborator, described Phelan as “a first-class economist, a great theorist, very balanced and very thoughtful when it comes to policy.” Chari said he was pleased the administration tapped an academic for the position, rather than a D.C. or Wall Street insider.

But how much Phelan will be able to influence White House economic policy remains to be seen, Chari said.

“The vagaries of policymaking are going to be determined by whatever happens to flash in front of the president at that particular instance, and that’s hard to control,” he said. “So I have no idea what crazy ideas he’s going to be able to stop and good ideas he is going to be able to promote, but for sure, he will try his best at promoting good ideas and stopping bad ideas.”

Trump rode a wave of post-pandemic inflation fatigue to a second presidential term, promising to immediately lower prices and impose tariffs he said would create a domestic manufacturing boom.

A little more than a year later, the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down Trump’s global tariffs, and inflation is ticking up as the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran continues. Just 30% of respondents to an April poll from AP-NORC said they approved of Trump’s handling of the economy, and less than a quarter said they approved of how he’s handling the cost of living.

Trump has spent much of his second term pushing the Fed to lower its benchmark interest rates — which influence consumer and business borrowing costs — and lashing out publicly at Chairman Jerome Powell when that hasn’t happened.

The central bank is an independent government agency. Its 12-member Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) typically raises rates to slow the economy when inflation is high and lowers them to kickstart growth when unemployment is high.

The Trump administration’s pressure campaign against Powell and the Fed, including an ongoing Justice Department investigation, has raised concerns about whether the central bank will be able to maintain its independence.

Phelan has “always taken the view that Fed independence is absolutely central,” a view mainstream economists tend to share, Chari said.

“Chris is a strong defender of those ideas, and I expect that he will continue to defend those ideas within the administration,” he said. “That’s essential for the long-term health of this nation.”

Phelan, a fellow of the prestigious Econometric Society, holds economics degrees from Duke University and the University of Chicago. He previously worked as a full-time economist at the Minneapolis Fed, and in faculty roles at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Northwestern University.

If confirmed, Phelan would not be the first University economics professor to lead the Council of Economic Advisers. In the 1960s, Walter Heller held the role under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

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