ST. LOUIS — In 11 years as head of the St. Louis Federal Reserve, James Bullard has found himself on most sides of the big debates inside the U.S. central bank.

He has argued for aggressive efforts to lift the economy and at other times against them. He has criticized colleagues for doing too little to lift low inflation and for not acting to keep price growth in check.

It has earned Bullard, 58, a reputation as something of a gadfly in monetary policy circles, though The Economist magazine once ranked him among the world’s 10 most influential economists.

For the past three years, though, well before President Donald Trump’s election, he has settled in place as arguably the most ardent voice in favor of lower interest rates inside the Fed. It’s a position that has caught the eye of Trump and others in the administration as the president pounds on the Fed to lower rates, albeit for different reasons than Bullard cites.

Bullard sees the United States as stuck in a low-growth rut, in contrast to Trump’s best-economy-in-the-world rhetoric. Still, the overlap in their desire for looser monetary policy may be on the verge of boosting Bullard’s influence.