By Howard Schneider and Ann Saphir
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s pause on some announced import taxes may have eased the stress building in financial markets for now, but leaves in place the same set of circumstances that had reset the U.S. economic outlook with rising recession risks and potentially rising inflation.
Major tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada remain in place, accounting for the bulk of U.S. imports, and the public, investors and the U.S. Federal Reserve now have three more months of uncertainty around where a disruptive debate will settle.
With the stage set for a downturn in confidence that Fed officials already worry is sidelining spending and investment, policymakers this week said they continued to view the tariffs as a blow to economic growth that also raised the risk of higher inflation and leaves monetary policy at a difficult crossroads.
Markets continued to function smoothly, they said, despite turbulence including a swoon in global equities and rising rates on U.S. Treasury bonds and corporate credit. Financial conditions have tightened and could begin to squeeze the economy, but officials said they viewed that as a normal repricing of the economic growth outlook given the dramatic changes potentially unfolding in international trade.
The Fed has in the past intervened to allay broad stress in financial markets, but under conditions where liquidity dries up and trading in key markets threatens to stop altogether.
“As we go through this cycle of disruption we do have an obligation as a central bank to really keep our eye on liquidity,” Kansas City Fed President Jeff Schmid said on Thursday. “We are literally by the minute watching those markets … It looks to me like the market is adjusting pretty well for the gyrations that have been in the market the last couple of weeks. We are there if needed.”
If the volatility left Fed officials unfazed for now, Trump’s dramatic climbdown from a sweeping set of tariffs on dozens of countries did nothing either to shift their view that the actions already announced and still in place will slow the economy and lead to both rising joblessness and rising prices.
“It appears as though we have seen a marked increase in the upside risks around inflation along with elevated downside risks to the outlook for employment and growth,” Schmid said. “With renewed price pressures likely, I am not willing to take any chances when it comes to maintaining the Fed’s credibility on inflation.”
Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan, in comments to a Peterson Institute for International Economics event on trade and immigration, made a similar point.
“To sustainably achieve both of our dual-mandate goals, it will be important to keep any tariff-related price increases from fostering more persistent inflation,” she said. “For now, I believe the stance of monetary policy is well positioned.”
“There is not a generic playbook for how a central bank should respond” to the tariffs the Trump administration is pursuing since they potentially put the Fed’s dual goals of stable, 2% inflation and low unemployment in conflict, Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said at a gathering of the Economic Club of New York.
In more usual circumstances rising inflation would be met with tighter monetary policy and rising unemployment with looser credit conditions. The emerging situation may force the Fed to sacrifice gains on one of its goals to meet the one it considers more important in the moment to address.
While the Trump climbdown on tariffs did little to shift views at the Fed, where policymakers seem ready to keep interest rates on hold until there is more clarity on the economy’s direction, neither did financial markets snap back to normal.
Auctions of U.S. Treasury 10-year and 30-year bonds on Wednesday and Thursday went smoothly, but yields edged higher in a sign some analysts said meant markets were growing mistrustful of U.S. growth and the country’s economic “exceptionalism.”
But stocks surrendered much of Wednesday’s stunning jump. There was only a slight narrowing in the premium paid by less creditworthy companies to borrow, and the risk premium for high-grade bonds actually increased a bit. Corporate bond issuance risks grinding to a halt, with the most creditworthy companies raising only $10 billion so far in April compared to $190 billion over a similar period in March, and only a single lower-rated issue made this month so far.
Rising costs of corporate credit and slowing corporate bond issuance can signal both a drop in coming investment spending and be a precursor of stress if weaker firms struggle to refinance or cover higher debt costs.
“I focus a lot on financial conditions, financing conditions,” St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem told Reuters earlier this week. “They have tightened some, tightened appreciably. If sustained that could have a headwind to growth.”
(Reporting by Howard Schneider, Ann Saphir and Michael S. Derby; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
