President Trump this week revived a longstanding threat against Jerome H. Powell when he accused the Federal Reserve chair of “playing politics” and moving too slowly to lower interest rates. But privately, according to people close to Mr. Trump, the president has for months been aware that trying to oust Mr. Powell could inject more volatility into jittery financial markets.

Investors are already uneasy after a period of tumult after a blitz of tariffs announced by the administration this month. Undermining the political independence of the Fed, which is seen as critical across Wall Street, could risk a much more significant financial panic.

“If I want him out, he’ll be out of there real fast, believe me,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on Thursday when asked about Mr. Powell. The warning came on the heels of an early morning social media post in which Mr. Trump said “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!”

Mr. Trump’s advisers have repeatedly told him that firing Mr. Powell is both legally and financially fraught — and the uncertainty could cause a significant downturn in financial markets. Mr. Trump, at least for the moment, has seemed persuaded, the people said.

For months, Mr. Trump has privately fretted about the prospect of a Great Depression-scale event happening on his watch — a scenario he shorthands in conversations as “1929.” But the events of the past two weeks so alarmed some of Mr. Trump’s closest advisers, including his Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, that Mr. Trump himself seems to have absorbed how close they came to a financial meltdown.

Mr. Trump’s decision at the beginning of the month to announce historic tariffs on nearly all of the country’s trading partners and aggressively escalate his global trade war sent financial markets into a tailspin. Stocks plummeted and an alarming sell-off in U.S. government bonds and the dollar fanned fears that the country was starting to lose its vaunted status as the safest corner in the financial system.

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