Fed's Powell heads to Senate panel for second day of testimony

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US President Donald Trump disputed an intelligence report that found the airstrikes he ordered on Iran had only a limited impact on its nuclear program, even though the assessment came from the Pentagon.

“The nuclear sites in Iran are completely destroyed,” Trump said on Truth Social. He said CNN and the New York Times, which first reported the intelligence findings on Tuesday, “have teamed up in an attempt to demean one of the most successful military strikes in history.”

Later, speaking to reporters at a NATO summit in The Hague on Wednesday, he said the report was “very inconclusive” but that he still believed the sites were demolished.

American stealth bombers, on Sunday morning, targeted the underground uranium-enrichment sites of Fordow and Natanz. The US also atomic facilities at Isfahan.

“The intelligence says we don’t know,” he said. “It could have been very severe. That’s what the intelligence says. So I guess that’s correct, but I think we can take that we don’t know. It was very severe. It was obliteration.”

He also suggested Israel would soon be able to give a firm assessment because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “going to have people involved in that whole situation.”

The Israel Atomic Energy Commission issued a statement on Wednesday saying Fordow had been rendered inoperable and that Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapon had been set back years.

Iran, also on Wednesday, said its nuclear facilities had been “badly damaged.” But it gave no more detail and said it was still assessing the situation on the ground.

The assessment from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency said the June 22 bombing likely didn’t cripple the core components of Iran’s program below ground, including its centrifuges, according to people familiar with its contents. The findings are in line with open-source satellite imagery that shows new craters, possible collapsed tunnel entrances and holes on top of a mountain ridge but no conclusive evidence the attack breached the most heavily protected underground facilities.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has backed Trump’s viewpoint on the success of the strikes in Iran. He said the Pentagon’s report was “preliminary” and “low confidence,” adding that the leak would be investigated.

Trump had said the strikes “totally obliterated” their targets, and dismissed reports casting doubt on the claim. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt posted on X Tuesday that the intelligence finding of limited impact was “flat-out wrong.”

Source: Yahoo Finance

source : Bloomberg

This good news for ordinary Australians is, however, not a helpful development for those wanting a stronger currency.

Above: GBP/AUD (top) and AUD/USD.

Source: Poundsterlinglive

U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell resumes two days of Congressional testimony on Wednesday when he appears before the Senate Banking committee after scrutiny before a House panel the day before that focused on the Fed's concerns the Trump administration's tariff plans will raise inflation.

The Senate session begins at 10 a.m. with Powell expected to deliver the same message he presented to the House Financial Services Committee that even with recent inflation more moderate than expected, the central bank expects rising import taxes will lead to higher inflation beginning this summer. He is also expected to reiterate that the Fed won't be comfortable cutting interest rates until it sees if prices do begin to rise and whether that process shows signs of becoming more persistent.

"We should start to see this over the summer, in the June number and the July number...If we don't we are perfectly open to the idea that the pass-through (to consumers) will be less than we think, and if we do that will matter for policy," Powell said on Tuesday. “I think if it turns out that inflation pressures remain contained we will get to a place where we cut rates sooner than later...I do not want to point to a particular meeting. I don't think we need to be in any rush," particularly given a still-strong labor market and so much uncertainty about the impact of the still-unresolved tariff debate.

Tariffs have already risen on some goods, but there is a coming July 9 deadline for higher levies on a broad set of countries - with no certainty about whether the Trump administration will back down to a 10% baseline tariff that analysts are using as a minimum, or impose something more aggressive.

The Fed has held its benchmark interest rate steady in the 4.25% to 4.5% range since December, despite demands by President Donald Trump for immediate, and deep, rate cuts.

Economic projections released by the Fed last week showed policymakers at the median do anticipate reducing the benchmark overnight rate half a percentage point by the end of the year. But within those projections is a clear divide between officials who take the inflation risk more seriously -- 7 of 19 policy makers see no rate cuts at all this year -- and those who feel any tariff price shock will be less severe or quickly fade. Ten of the 19 see 2 or more rate reductions.

Investors currently expect the Fed to cut rates at its September and December meetings, but hold rates steady at its next meeting on July 29-30.

Source: Yahoo Finance

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