WASHINGTON — President Trump might get what he wants from the Federal Reserve, which kept interest rates steady on Wednesday but indicated that it could soon cut them as economic risks mounted and inflation remained stuck below target.

A growing number of officials on the Fed’s policymaking committee expect to lower rates before the end of the year amid continuing trade tensions and slowing global economic growth. The Fed chair, Jerome H. Powell, said at a news conference after the Fed’s two-day meeting that officials were watching economic developments to gauge whether and when action was warranted.

“The committee felt that the right thing to do was to wait and see more — and we will see a lot more on all of these issues in the very near term,” Mr. Powell said. He added that emerging risks “have caused a number of us to write down rate cuts, and a number of those who haven’t to say that the case has strengthened.”

Mr. Trump has been jawboning the Fed to cut rates and stop shrinking the large portfolio of government bonds the central bank amassed in the wake of the financial crisis as it tried to shore up the American economy. While the Fed operates independently of the White House and strives to ignore political chatter while making rate decisions, rising economic threats — some of them caused by the trade fights Mr. Trump is waging — have forced it to open the door to a cut.