President Donald Trump has escalated his attack on the Federal Reserve’s interest rate increases, asserting that “the Fed is out of control” and blaming it for this week’s plunge in stock prices.

“It’s a correction that I think is caused by the Federal Reserve with interest rates,” Trump said when asked by reporters in the Oval Office about the stock market swoon.

He added, “We have interest rates going up at a clip that’s much faster than certainly a lot of people, including myself, would have anticipated. I think the Fed is out of control.”

It was the latest in series of recent barrages the president has unleashed at the Fed, which under his hand-picked chairman, Jerome Powell, has been gradually raising rates.

(AP)