Takeaways from the Fed’s latest decision, which got pushback from officials siding with Trump

Economic

Summary:

The Fed held rates steady despite Trump’s pressure, facing rare dissent from two officials favoring cuts. Powell emphasized caution amid economic uncertainty, labor risks, and tariff effects, tempering hopes for a September rate cut.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday kept interest rates unchanged for the fifth consecutive meeting as it remains under intense pressure from President Donald Trump and his allies to lower borrowing costs.

The central bank left its benchmark lending rate at a range of 4.25% to 4.5%, where it has been since December, but the decision wasn’t unanimous. Fed Governor Christopher Waller and Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman cast dissenting votes, marking the first time more than one Fed governor has dissented since 1993. They preferred a quarter-point rate cut instead, the Fed said.

The division among policymakers underscores the extraordinary and uncomfortable moment the Fed is in: Central bankers want to wait a little while longer for additional data to see how the US economy is faring during Trump’s trade war, but they’re facing repeated attack from the White House because of their wait-and-see strategy.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in a post-meeting news conference that these are still the “early days” of Trump’s tariffs — and their effects on the US economy — meaning that “there are many, many uncertainties left to resolve,” he said.

Here are takeaways from the Fed’s latest decision to hold rates steady as the central bank faces intense pressure to reduce borrowing costs, even from within.

Powell on the dissents and possible rate cuts

A Fed governor dissenting on a policy decision is rare, and even more so when two of them do it at the same time. But Powell didn’t characterize that as an issue.

“On the dissents, what you want from everybody and also from a dissenter is a clear explanation of what your thinking is and what the arguments are you are making. We had that today,” Powell said. “Basically, this was a good meeting around the table where people thought carefully about this and put their positions out there.”

Bowman and Waller could share their views on why they dissented as soon as Friday morning, after the customary post-meeting blackout.

Even though the Fed is standing pat for now, the central bank is widely expected to lower rates at least once this year, and as many as two times by year’s end, according to futures. This year’s first rate cut could some as soon as September, some investors say.

Powell said there are still too many things up in the air when it comes to the economy to know whether it makes sense to resume rate cuts in the fall. “We have made no decisions about September,” he said.

For now, Fed policymakers are waiting to see if the effects of Trump’s tariffs on inflation prove to be mild and if the economy continues to weaken. Those two developments would give the Fed the green light to resume rate cuts and ease some pressure off the economy.

“Most in the (Fed’s rate-setting) committee think it will be appropriate to cut rates fairly soon, but they might be disagreeing over exactly how much evidence they need or how comfortable they have to be before they start cutting rates again,” William English, a former senior Fed adviser, told CNN.

Powell on the labor market

The job market has been a pillar of strength for the US economy for years, but it’s not clear how much longer that resilience will persist as tariffs start to take a bigger bite.

In addition to taming inflation, the Fed is also responsible for protecting the labor market.

Powell reiterated repeatedly Wednesday that the labor market remains in good shape, but said “you do see a slowing of job creation” and some “downside risk,” meaning a turn for the worse.

And it’s not just Waller and Bowman who have doubts over how much longer the labor market can keep its ahead above water without any rate cuts.

“I wouldn’t want to see more weakness in the labor market,” San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said earlier this month at an event in Idaho. “Which is why you can’t wait forever.”

Powell said officials are looking at various factors of the labor market such as demand for workers and the supply of workers, which is being affected by Trump’s ongoing crackdown on immigration.

Powell on the renovation and housing

Trump hasn’t let up with his monthslong, insult-laden pressure campaign against Powell.

The president raised the temperature earlier this month when he and his allies seized on the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of its headquarters in Washington, DC. They said the Fed, with Powell at the helm, has mismanaged the project, seeing it as a potential legal opening to oust Powell. Last week, Trump toured the renovation site and at one point even feuded with Powell, on camera, over the total cost of the project.

Powell said it was “a nice visit with the president,” adding that “he really wanted to see was us getting this construction completed as soon as possible.”

“That is our focus. And that’s what we are going to do,” he said.

Since then, Trump has backed off from his criticism of the renovation project. On Monday, he even said he will “greatly miss” Powell, whose term as Fed chair ends in May 2026.

Trump is still calling on the Fed to lower rates, but instead of saying it drove up the federal government’s debt servicing costs, he’s now pointing to the effects of elevated interest rates on the housing market.

“‘Too Late’ MUST NOW LOWER THE RATE. No Inflation! Let people buy, and refinance, their homes!” Trump wrote Wednesday on his social media platform.

However, the Fed cutting rates will not be the silver bullet that fixes the housing market, which is still grappling with the longstanding issue of not enough homes on the market. And last year, after the Fed began to lower interest rates, mortgage rates climbed instead.

On the housing market, Powell said “there are other things going on housing sector, and one of those is … a long-term housing shortage.”

Powell on the latest GDP report

The Fed’s decision comes the same day new data showed underlying momentum in the economy is sputtering.

The Commerce Department earlier on Wednesday reported that gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic output, registered an annualized rate of 3% in the second quarter. That figure beat economists’ expectations and was a sharp rebound from the first quarter, when surging imports as businesses tried to get ahead of tariffs prompted GDP to decline at a 0.5% rate.

But that strong headline figure masks underlying weakness buried in the details of the GDP report, and even the Fed noted that in its latest policy statement.

“Although swings in net exports continue to affect the data, recent indicators suggest that growth of economic activity moderated in the first half of the year,” Fed officials wrote.

A key gauge of demand in the economy — real final sales to private domestic purchasers — expanded at a 1.2% rate in the April-through-June period, down from 1.9% in the beginning of the year.

“We expected the GDP data that we got this week and I think it’s still a little bit difficult to interpret because you have these massive swings in net exports,” Powell said.

Source: cnn

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