Minutes for the last FOMC meeting will be made available today. They will show how concerned the Fed was over stagflation risks and how much of it was influenced by the so-called ‘Liberation Day.’
At their meeting on March 18–19, policymakers from the US central bank admitted that the outlook had changed. Initially, they were optimistic about slowing inflation and steady growth to being mostly uncertain and worried that new US import taxes would raise inflation even as they slowed demand, growth, and maybe even employment.
FOMC minutes drop tomorrow at 2PM ET.
We’ll get a deeper look into the Fed’s thinking from the last meeting — and possibly some clues on upcoming rate cuts.
However, that comment was based on Trump’s first trade announcements and other things he had done since January 20, when he returned to the White House. At that meeting, updated estimates from policymakers showed that officials were already expecting growth to be a little slower and inflation to be slightly higher than expected.
However, they still planned to cut interest rates by half a percentage point by the end of 2025.
What picture will the Fed FOMC minutes paint on stagflation?
Two weeks after the meeting, Trump announced new tariffs on dozens of countries that were much harsher than anyone had thought. These tariffs raised the average rate on goods from other countries from about 2.5% to 25% or more. This caused a huge drop in the value of stocks around the world.
To that end, the minutes might not show how worried policymakers are as much as they really have since April 2.
However, they usually include important information about staff predictions and the different scenarios being thought about. On top of that, they can show how strongly people feel about different parts of the economic future.
Analysts from the consulting company of former Fed Governor Larry Meyer said that the last meeting set a marker for a starting point on which prediction changes from Trump reforms can build.
Fed outlook balanced between stagnation and recession
In March, the unemployment rate was 4.2%, which was a little higher than the previous month. However, businesses added more than 200,000 jobs, which is what mostly caused the unemployment rate to rise.
The Federal Reserve’s main measure of inflation, the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index, rose 2.5% over the past year in February. This was only 0.5 percentage points above the central bank’s goal.
However, inflation hasn’t changed much since September, and the tariffs are now just around the corner. Reports of faster demand for cars, foreign wine, and other goods that will be taxed may even be starting to feel their effects on the economy.
Now, the Fed will have to work hard to pull out a broad macroeconomic signal from a time that is likely to be noisy. Some important prices, like gas, may go down because of lower demand, while other prices, like those for many imports, may increase because of the taxes. On top of that, the stock market crash could hurt people’s spending over time.
After that, they said, monetary policy might change very slowly and then all at once until it is clear if the tariffs and other changes made by Trump will cause prices to rise, growth to slow, or a mix of the two. This is what the Fed chairman has been saying: that everything depends on the decisions that Trump is making.
Samuel Tombs, chief US economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote on Tuesday that falling oil and gas prices and a 30% drop in shipping costs since February will cancel out about a quarter of the effect that tariffs have had on family income after taxes.
However, the drop in stock prices has caused US families to lose $5.5 trillion in market value since the end of last year. This could lead to a drop in spending of up to $140 billion.
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This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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