U.S. President Donald Trump has urged for a reduction in the benchmark interest rate, stating that "there is no inflation," while officials from the Federal Reserve (Fed) indicated that the timing of a rate cut may be delayed due to price instability arising from tariff policies.
According to Bloomberg News on the 10th (local time), Susan Collins, president of the Boston Federal Reserve Bank, said during a speech at Georgetown University that "there needs to be confidence that tariffs do not destabilize inflation expectations" and noted that "new price pressures could delay policy normalization such as interest rate cuts."
Collins stated that keeping interest rates on hold for the time being is "the best approach in a highly uncertain situation," and conveyed that internal estimates at the Fed suggest that if the effective tariff rate exceeds 10%, core inflation could rise by as much as 1.2 percentage points.
On the same day, Austan Goolsbee, president of the Chicago Fed, pointed out during a speech at the New York Economic Club that "tariffs pose a stagflationary shock" and threaten the Fed's dual policy goals of price stability and employment.
He expressed concern that while the U.S. economy is not yet in a stagflation phase, supply chain shocks due to tariffs could dampen investment sentiment and lead to economic slowdown.
After the speech, Goolsbee told reporters that "the criteria for adjusting interest rates in the short term have become slightly higher than before."
Earlier, on the 7th, President Trump claimed on Truth Social that "oil prices, interest rates, and food prices are all falling," and insisted that "there is no inflation," exerting pressure on the Fed for a rate cut.