Fed Chair Jerome Powell issued dire warnings on lowering interest rates, the economy and Trump’s tariffs.
Powell said the economy has been resilient and deems it’s smart to wait and see how things shake out before making any moves.
POWELL: The tariff increases announced so far have been significantly larger than anticipated.
If the large increases in tariffs that have been announced are sustained, they’re likely to generate a rise in inflation, a slowdown in economic growth, and an increase in unemployment.
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POWELL: What looks likely, given the scope and scale of the tariffs, is that we will see certainly the risks to higher inflation, higher unemployment have have increased.
And if that’s what we do see, and if the tariffs are ultimately put in place at those levels, which we don’t know, then then we will see, we won’t see further progress toward our goals, but we might see a delay in that.
I think in the, you know, in our in our thinking, we would get, we would never, we never do anything but keep achieving those goals.
But we would, at least for the next, let’s say, year, we would, we would not be making progress toward those goals.
Again, if that is, if that’s the way the tariffs shake out.
The thing is, we don’t know that.
There’s so much uncertainty about the scale, scope, timing, and persistence of the of the tariffs.
That was not what Demented Donald was looking for.
Uncertainty and chaos is Trump’s calling card and he will likely take to Truth Social and have an all CAPS rant about Powell not lowering rates and refusing to describe his tariffs as “beautiful.”.
