Powell’s caution on tariff-driven inflation is right

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is taking the right approach by waiting to lower interest rates. Here's why.

By

Opinion

July 22, 2025 - 7:19 PM

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell testifies before the House Financial Services Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, June 24, 2025, in Washington, D.C. ( Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/TNS

President Donald Trump has taken to routinely maligning Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell as “too late” because interest rates have been on hold at 4.25%-4.5% since he took office. 

On Tuesday alone, he characteristically took to social media to demand three percentage points of rate cuts — something that is never going to happen outside of a recession. Trump’s needling aside, the latest inflation data show that Powell’s wait-and-see approach is the exact right tack for today’s economic outlook.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said Tuesday that the core…

Related
July 14, 2021
June 23, 2021
June 18, 2020
May 13, 2020