WASHINGTON — A former top Federal Reserve official suggested Tuesday that the Fed should avoid responding to the effects of President Donald Trump’s trade war with China and consider how its actions might affect Trump’s re-election prospects — an argument that drew an unusual rejection from the Fed.

William Dudley, former president of the Fed’s New York regional bank, argued in a Bloomberg Opinion piece that if the Fed were to accommodate the president — by further cutting interest rates, for example — it could lead him to escalate his trade war and elevate the risk of a recession.

“This manufactured disaster-in-the-making presents the Federal Reserve with a dilemma: Should it mitigate the damage by providing offsetting stimulus, or refuse to play along?” Dudley wrote.

His most dramatic suggestion was for the politically independent Fed to consider Trump’s re-election prospects in formulating its policies.

“Trump’s re-election,” Dudley wrote, “arguably presents a threat to the U.S. and global economy, to the Fed’s independence and its ability to achieve its employment and inflation objectives. If the goal of monetary policy is to achieve the best long-term economic outcome, then Fed officials should consider how their decisions will affect the political outcome in 2020.”

The Fed issued a response asserting that it is determined to remain apolitical.