#FOMCMeeting

When the Federal Reserve decides what to do with interest rates to manage the economy, the data usually speaks for itself. Policymakers, for instance, knew they needed to rush to cut interest rates in 2020 as the gears of commerce came to a screeching halt at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Two years later, when inflation surged to a 40-year high and jobs were plentiful, the central bank hiked borrowing costs to cool off the economy and bring prices back in check.

Those days may now be over.

President Donald Trump’s trade war is roiling business, consumer and investor confidence, threatening to derail hiring and spending while also raising the risk of a recession, economists say. At the same time, the extent of those tariff hikes is threatening to push up prices across the country as the cost of importing foreign goods and materials becomes more expensive.

could put the Fed’s two jobs — keeping prices stable while also maintaining a healthy labor market — at odds with each other. And there’s a lot at stake, as Trump steps up his pressure on the U.S. central bank to cut interest rates. If both Americans’ cost-of-living and job prospects soon need saving, the U.S. central bank’s next moves might come down to individual preferences on how each official is reading the data, a level of subjectivity that might open it up to even more scrutiny.

“Whatever they do, it will be interpreted politically,” said Vincent Reinhart, chief economist at BNY Investments, who spent more than two decades at the Fed. “If the May meeting comes and goes with an unchanged policy stance, then the headline is going to be, ‘Fed ignores the president.’ And if they were surprisingly to ease policy, the headline would be, ‘Fed bows to president.'”

For now, officials seem inclined to stand pat as they wait to assess the total impact of Trump’s policies.