NEW YORK - The US Federal Reserve has not surrendered to the Trump administration's call to cut interest rates, because the central bank believes that its job is not to provide cheap government financing but to focus on its mandate to ensure low inflation and plentiful jobs, reported The Washington Post on Thursday.

"With price increases remaining subdued but forecast to rise over the coming months, most officials see little justification for immediately easing rates, at least not at the Fed's next policymaking meeting this month," noted the report.

While there are signs of growing division about when to cut, most Fed officials are content with the existing wait-and-see approach as long as the labor market continues to generate jobs at a steady pace.

"We're simply taking some time," the report quoted Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell as saying this month at a conference in Portugal. "As long as the US economy is in solid shape, we think the prudent thing to do is wait and learn more and see what those effects might be."

READ MORE: Trump demands Fed's Chair Powell 'resign immediately'

US President Donald Trump has spent months criticizing Powell, most recently arguing that the central bank should immediately cut interest rates to make it easier for the federal government to finance ballooning deficits, but the arguments have done little to sway most of the Fed policymakers and its economists.