WASHINGTON— Although President Trump has urged the Fed to initiate "preemptive" interest rate cuts, a senior Federal Reserve official indicated the central bank is unlikely to adjust monetary policy before the second half of the year.
Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said firms may begin laying off more workers if aggressive tariff levels are reinstated by the Trump administration, and he’d support rate cuts if there’s a significant rise in unemployment, Bloomberg reported.
“It wouldn’t surprise me that you might start seeing more layoffs, a tick up in the unemployment rate going forward if the big tariffs in particular come back on,” Waller said in an interview on Bloomberg Television with Michael McKee. “I would expect more rate cuts, and sooner, once I started seeing some serious deterioration in the labor market.”