On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Bottom Line,” former Trump Economic Adviser Stephen Moore stated that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell keeping rates too high has hurt the economy and “some of the tariff turmoil that we saw…really contributed to some of the weak job numbers that we now see.” And liberation day “caused a lot of havoc and a lot of problems for our manufacturers.”
Moore said, “I think that Powell has been an incompetent Fed Chairman, no question about it. He was the one who let the inflation go up to 9.1% when Biden was president and was too tight in Trump’s first term, almost caused a recession. And he’s very tight right now, and that has certainly taken some of the wind out of the sails of the economy. I do think, though, that the big story here, as we look at these revisions — and that’s the big story here — is that, look, I do think that some of the tariff turmoil that we saw, remember, in April and May, really contributed to some of the weak job numbers that we now see.”
Later, he added, “I don’t like tariffs, generally, because I’m more of a free trade guy. But Trump — I am impressed with these trade deals. And they are a better deal for American manufacturers and farmers and our technology companies that were being discriminated against. But I think, as we look back at the first few months of the Trump presidency and the, quote, liberation day, that caused a lot of havoc and a lot of problems for our manufacturers. Because remember, almost everything that’s produced in the United States also involves imports, David. And it caused a lot of problems in terms of being able to get the supplies and the supply chain finished in ways that we could produce things. So, I like the trade deals. I’m not a big fan of the tariffs.”
Moore also stated that you can argue that without the tariff pressure, the deals wouldn’t have been reached.
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