{"id":291531,"date":"2026-02-19T10:55:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T10:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/291531\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T10:55:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T10:55:16","slug":"kevin-hassett-says-fed-researchers-should-be-disciplined-over-report-that-americans-are-paying-tariffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/291531\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Hassett says Fed researchers should be \u2018disciplined\u2019 over report that Americans are paying tariffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said Wednesday that researchers at the New York Federal Reserve who produced a study<\/a> finding American businesses and consumers are shouldering 90% of the cost of President Donald Trump\u2019s tariffs should be \u201cdisciplined.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s, I think, the worst paper I\u2019ve ever seen in the history of the Federal Reserve system,\u201d Hassett told CNBC in an interview.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe people associated with this paper should presumably be disciplined, because what they\u2019ve done is they\u2019ve put out a conclusion which has created a lot of news that\u2019s highly partisan based on analysis that wouldn\u2019t be accepted in a first-semester econ class,\u201d Hassett continued.\n <\/p>\n

\n The New York Fed and the Fed Board of Governors declined to respond to CNN about Hassett\u2019s comments.\n <\/p>\n

\n Hassett\u2019s primary concern with the research was, in his view, that it only focused on price-related effects of tariffs and not changes in the volume of imports.\n <\/p>\n

\n However, that\u2019s not entirely true. In assessing the tariff burdens, the authors calculate average duty rates over various periods of time. They define that as \u201cthe total monthly tariff revenue divided by the total value of imports in the month,\u201d meaning import volume is taken into consideration. Specifically, they looked at how \u201cglobal supply chains shifted in response to the higher tariffs.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Like Fed officials who vote on interest-rate decisions, researchers at the 12 regional banks and Board of Governors go to great lengths to establish independence from outside political actors. The research they produce helps officials make more informed decisions by having a clearer sense of the state of the economy now and in the future. The researchers, however, do not make policy recommendations.\n <\/p>\n

\n Hassett had been a top contender to replace Fed Chair Jerome Powell, whose term at the helm of the central bank expires in May. However, Trump announced last month that he had nominated former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh for the position<\/a>, which requires Senate confirmation.\n <\/p>\n

\n Like Trump, Warsh has been a staunch critic of the Fed and Powell, and has vowed to overhaul many facets of the central bank if confirmed.\n <\/p>\n

\n His nomination comes at a time when the Trump administration has staged various attacks on the Fed and its longstanding independence. That includes a criminal inquiry<\/a> into Powell and the Fed over a multibillion-dollar renovation of its headquarters and an attempt<\/a> to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook over unproven allegations of mortgage fraud.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said Wednesday that researchers at the New York Federal Reserve who produced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-291531","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}