WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve officials are poised to cut their key interest rate for a second consecutive time on Thursday in response to a steady slowdown in inflationary pressures that have exasperated many Americans and helped propel Donald Trump to the presidential election.

However, the Fed’s future moves are now more uncertain after the election, given that Trump’s economic proposals have been widely flagged as potentially inflationary. His election also raised the specter of White House meddling in the Fed’s policy decisions, with Trump proclaiming that as president he should have a say in the central bank’s interest rate decisions.

The Fed has long maintained its status as an independent institution capable of making difficult decisions about lending rates without political interference. However, during his previous tenure in the White House, Trump publicly attacked Chairman Jerome Powell after the Fed raised rates to fight inflation, and he may do so again.

The economy is also clouding the picture with mixed signals, with solid growth but weakening hiring. Even so, consumer spending was healthy, fueling concerns that there is no need for the Fed to cut borrowing costs and that doing so could overstimulate the economy and even re-accelerate inflation.

Financial markets are throwing another curveball at the Fed: Investors have pushed up Treasury yields since the central bank cut interest rates in September. The result was higher borrowing costs across the economy, diminishing the consumer benefit of the Fed’s half-point cut in its benchmark rate, which it announced after its September meeting.

The average U.S. 30-year mortgage rate, for example, fell over the summer as the Fed signaled it would cut rates, only to rise again once the central bank actually cut its benchmark rate.

Broader interest rates rose as investors anticipate higher inflation, larger federal budget deficits and faster economic growth under a President-elect of Trump. In what Wall Street called the “Trump trade,” stock prices also rose on Wednesday, and bitcoin and the dollar rallied. Trump talked about cryptocurrencies during his campaign, and the dollar would likely benefit from higher rates and the general rate hike Trump has proposed.

Trump’s plan to impose a tariff of at least 10 percent on all imports, as well as significantly higher taxes on Chinese goods and carry out a mass deportation of undocumented immigrants would almost certainly boost inflation. This would make it less likely that the Fed would continue to cut its key rate. Annual inflation, as measured by the central bank’s preferred gauge, fell to 2.1% in September.

Economists at Goldman Sachs estimate that Trump’s proposed 10 percent tariff, as well as his proposed taxes on Chinese imports and cars from Mexico, could push inflation back to about 2.75 percent to 3 percent by mid-2026.

Such a hike would likely reverse future rate cuts the Fed signaled in September. At that meeting, when policymakers cut their key interest rate by half a point to about 4.9 percent, officials said they were eyeing quarter-point rate cuts later in the year – one on Thursday and one in December – and then four more. rate cuts in 2025.

But investors now see rate cuts next year as increasingly unlikely. The perceived likelihood of a rate cut at next January’s Fed meeting fell to just 28% on Wednesday, down from 41% on Tuesday and nearly 70% a month ago, according to futures prices tracked by CME FedWatch.

Rising borrowing costs for things like mortgages and auto loans, even as the Fed cuts its benchmark rate, has created a potential challenge for the central bank: Its effort to prop up the economy by lowering borrowing costs could backfire if investors act to increase long-term loan rates.

The economy grew at a solid annual rate of just under 3 percent over the past six months, while consumer spending — fueled by higher-income shoppers — rose strongly in the July-September quarter.

At the same time companies have clamped down on hiring, many people out of work are struggling to find jobs. Powell suggested the Fed was cutting its key rate in part to support the labor market. But if economic growth continues at a healthy pace and inflation picks up again, the central bank will come under increasing pressure to slow or halt interest rate cuts.