\u201cBut it is too soon to know the scope and duration of the potential effects on the economy,\u201d he told a press briefing after the Fed\u2019s policy meeting.<\/p>\n
Powell refused to be drawn into sharing specifics of his expectations for how the war could affect the US economy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re right at the beginning of this, and we don\u2019t know how big \u2013 you just don\u2019t know how big this will be and how long it lasts,\u201d he said, adding that the Fed would have to \u201cwait and see\u201d.<\/p>\n
US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell. Photo \/ Brendan Smialowski, AFP<\/p>\n
Trump has repeatedly insulted and criticised Powell for not slashing rates more aggressively and, in January, the Fed chair revealed that the US Justice Department had opened an investigation into him related to cost overruns on renovations at the bank\u2019s headquarters.<\/p>\n
This week, Powell was also adamant that he would not leave the Fed\u2019s board when his term as chair is over in May \u2013 his tenure as governor ends in 2028 \u2013 until the investigation is completed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have no intention of leaving the board until the investigation is well and truly over, with transparency and finality,\u201d Powell said.<\/p>\n
\u2018Difficult situation\u2019<\/p>\n
The central bank had cut rates three consecutive times late last year before holding them steady at its January meeting.<\/p>\n
It has a dual mandate of maintaining inflation near a long-term target of 2% while ensuring maximum employment.<\/p>\n
With war in the Middle East causing oil prices to spike, potentially fuelling widespread inflation and curbing growth, analysts said policymakers were unlikely to make any immediate moves.<\/p>\n
Affordability has been a key political issue for Trump, who has repeatedly called for rates to be cut even as price increases remained stubbornly high.<\/p>\n
\u201cUncertainty about the economic outlook remains elevated,\u201d the Fed said, while noting that economic activity was \u201cexpanding at a solid pace\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cJob gains have remained low, and the unemployment rate has been little changed in recent months. Inflation remains somewhat elevated.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Fed also released its quarterly summary of economic projections, expecting fourth-quarter GDP growth to come in at 2.4% year-on-year, and keeping its unemployment outlook steady at 4.4%.<\/p>\n
Powell conceded that policymakers were in a \u201cdifficult situation\u201d with two competing mandates, but that the current rate level was \u201cthe right place to be\u201d to balance risks to inflation and unemployment.<\/p>\n
Single dissenting vote<\/p>\n
The only dissenting voice on the rate vote came from Fed Governor Stephen Miran, a close ally and former economic adviser of Trump, who voted for a quarter-point cut to interest rates.<\/p>\n
But the Fed\u2019s statement defied analyst expectations of a more fragmented Fed amid diverging pressures.<\/p>\n
KPMG chief economist Diane Swonk said that while it was easy to read the Fed\u2019s statement as only indicating rate cuts on the horizon, the \u201cdevil is always in the details\u201d.<\/p>\n
Swonk told AFP the economic projections indicated that more policymakers were worried about declining growth with rising unemployment and inflation, a situation she described as \u201cstagflation-esque\u201d.<\/p>\n
At the press briefing, Powell played down the risk of stagflation, saying he would reserve the term \u201cfor a much more serious set of circumstances\u201d.<\/p>\n
He appeared bullish about future prospects, while noting the uncertainty inherent in the current moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe US economy is doing, you know, pretty well,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just we don\u2019t know what the effects of this will be, and really no one does.\u201d<\/p>\n
-Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cBut it is too soon to know the scope and duration of the potential effects on the economy,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[17517,138,45134,10668,219,2829,14051,5616,14236,23500,1943,12469,16609,111,139,69,17695,1523,2081,11596,7676,10665,83116,16641,3040,6149],"class_list":["post-336473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-because","tag-business","tag-citing","tag-economic","tag-economy","tag-fed","tag-federal","tag-forecast","tag-held","tag-impact","tag-inflation","tag-interest","tag-iran","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-outlook","tag-over","tag-raised","tag-raises","tag-rates","tag-reserve","tag-steady","tag-uncertain","tag-us","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336473","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=336473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}