U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Tuesday reiterated the U.S. central bank plans to "wait and learn more" about the impact of tariffs on inflation before lowering interest rates, again setting aside President Donald Trump's demands for immediate and deep rate cuts.
"We're simply taking some time," Powell said at a central bank gathering in Portugal, a day after Trump sent him a handwritten missive noting how low other central banks had cut rates and suggesting the U.S. needed to move. "As long as the U.S. economy is in solid shape, we think that the prudent thing to do is to wait and learn more and see what those effects might be."
Asked about Trump's barrage of insults, Powell's comment that the Fed was focused "100%" on its inflation and jobs target drew applause from the audience at a European Central Bank conference and from Powell's colleagues from the ECB, Bank of England and other central banks who joined him onstage for a panel discussion.
Central bank independence from the lobbying of elected officials, at least in the setting of interest rates, is considered key to keeping inflation under control.
At the same time Powell noted that a majority of Fed officials in recent projections still expect to lower the benchmark interest rate later this year, with none of the central bank's remaining four meetings off the table.
The Fed next meets on July 29-30.
"It's going to depend on the data, and we are going meeting by meeting," Powell said. "I wouldn't take any meeting off the table or put it directly on the table. It's going to depend on how the data evolve.”
The Fed gets the latest employment data, covering the month of June, on Thursday, with economists expecting job growth to slow. New inflation data will be released in a couple of weeks, while July 9 is the deadline for the possible imposition of higher global tariffs.
The response of markets to Powell's comments illustrated the very dilemma the Fed is facing as it weighs an intense combination of geopolitical risks and conflicting data.
Investors increased the estimated probability of a July rate cut to about one in four after Powell didn't explicitly rule it out, then drove chances back down to close to one in five after data on U.S. job openings came in stronger than expected.
