President Donald Trump, left, and Jerome Powell, the new chairman of the Federal Reserve on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017. Carlos Barria | Reuters

President Donald Trump has made one last pitch to pressure the Federal Reserve into not raising interest rates next week, but it's expected to have little impact. Despite a string of events that has seemed to push the central bank into a more dovish posture, a December hike now seems inevitable. The market is pricing in a quarter-point increase and Fed officials have done little to dissuade that position, so Trump's protests again are unlikely to influence Chairman Jerome Powell and the rest of the Federal Open Market Committee.

Powell "has a clear path from the marketplace to raise 25 basis points. There's no reason for him not to," said Steve Blitz, chief U.S. economist at TS Lombard. "Given all the noise from Trump, it would probably do his credibility and the Fed's credibility more harm if they skipped December." Still, the president gave it one last shot. For months, Trump has been blasting the Fed for the series of rate hikes it has undertaken since December 2015. The FOMC has raised its benchmark overnight rate six times since Trump has been in office, including three increases after Powell took over as chair in February 2018. This time around, the president took a little softer approach. In an interview with Reuters, Trump called Powell "a good man" who is "trying to do what he thinks is best." That's a contrast to recent statements he has made implying he regrets naming Powell to succeed Janet Yellen, who was the first one-term Fed chair since the late 1970s. But he repeated his assertion that he needs "accommodation" as he engages in a pitched trade battle with China. Most economists also are expecting the economy to cool off a bit next year after a 2018 that saw the highest growth since the Great Recession ended in mid-2009. Powell, though, is likely to shepherd another increase through and provide some clues about the direction of policy in 2019.

'He's a markets guy'