By Howard Schneider
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – With sweeping new U.S. tariffs now in play globally and markets shaken as a result, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Friday will add his voice to a growing debate at the central bank over whether the Trump administration’s new policies are more likely to stoke higher inflation or undercut growth and employment so much the Fed will have to respond.
Initial comments from his colleagues following U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff announcements this week showed concern the economy could be pulled in conflicting directions in coming months, with steep tariffs driving prices higher even as fading confidence and price shocks drive growth and consumption lower.
While short of classic “stagflation,” Fed Governor Adriana Kugler this week said “we’re already seeing some upside risks to inflation and some real increases in inflation…We may be seeing down the road a little bit of a slowdown as well,” in the economy overall.
Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson noted on Thursday that the “substantial amount of uncertainty around trade” could hit household and business spending, while Fed Governor Lisa Cook said that inflation expectations had ticked up “even before yesterday’s larger-than-expected announcements on trade policy.”
The push and pull expected between slower growth and rising prices could well keep the Fed on hold until it is clear which trend takes hold more forcefully.
Powell on Friday is likely to keep a “wait and see” tone despite the unexpected sweep of Trump’s announcements, since there remains a chance coming negotiations could blunt what is eventually implemented, said former Powell adviser Antulio Bomfim, head of global macro for Northern Trust.
He said the initial price shock from tariffs could push Fed rate cuts until later this year or into next, but that eventually “it could even be cutting with gusto if the economy is really approaching recession-type levels.”
Investors in contracts tied to the central bank’s policy rate appear to be leaning that way, and boosted bets on more rate cuts – presumably on views Trump’s actions would translate into slower growth and a related drop in inflation.
Markets now expect four quarter-point rate cuts from the Fed this year versus three before Trump’s announcement of tariffs that could tax imports an average of as much as 27% by some estimates, versus about 2.5% at the end of the Biden administration.
JP Morgan economist Michael Feroli said the headline impact of Trump’s actions, before accounting for retaliatory moves abroad and other second-round effects, could be to add as much as 1.5 percentage points to U.S. inflation this year, depress spending because of that blow to real wages, and “take the economy perilously close to slipping into recession.”
Economists at the consulting firm of former Fed Governor Larry Meyer, however, said they thought the price impact could shift public expectations and keep Fed rates on hold.
“We expect a significant inflationary impulse that…will likely fuel further and broader rises in inflation expectations and actual inflation itself,” they wrote. “We no longer presume…policy-rate easing in 2025.”
Powell is due to speak at 11:25 a.m EDT (1525 GMT).
Aside from Trump’s dramatic tariff announcements this week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday morning will release jobs data for March, a report that could begin to reflect the decline in federal government employment engineered by the Trump administration.
(Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
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