The price growth had cooled slightly in February, said the forecasting before the last report of the consumer price index, but the tariff policies of President Donald Trump already threaten to derail things.
The labor statistics office will publish its monthly inflation report at dawn on Wednesday. A Dow Jones analysts survey said that a more observed inflation measure was expected to eliminate the most volatile food and energy items would have decreased from 0.4% to 0.3% in the month and from 3.3% to 3.2% during the past year.
Economists were looking for the broader measure of the CPI to decrease even more in the midst of falling fuel prices.
Trump entered the position promising to reduce prices. However, most main economists say that it is an impossible goal to achieve, at least in a responsible way, provided that it also insists on implementing tariffs.
On Tuesday, Trump once again doubled a threat of rates, promising to promote steel and aluminum tasks up to 50% in the midst of Canada’s insistence to collect a 25% surcharge in electricity imports for some United States states on its immediate southern border.
Despite all tariff threats, Trump has only implemented supplementary commercial levies in China for a total of 20%, plus 25% of the tasks in a handful of goods not covered by the US-Mexico-Canada commercial pact.
However, Trump’s alone comments have been enough to cause a wave of uncertainty to the economy of the United States, altering consumer expense plans and companies equally.
“We have mass cross currents,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, to NBC News. “We have tariffs that will be added to inflation, but then a weaker economy that restores him. My sense is that we are not going to see more progress towards the [Federal Reserve’s] 2% inflation objective in the near future. “
The United States will be lucky to return to a percentage point of the 2%threshold, he said.
“We will simply not return” to 2%, he said. “The only reason we would return to that goal is whether the economy really stuck here and stops, you don’t even need a recession. Inflation could enter, but it would be for wrong reasons, because the economy is falling apart. ”
In its most recent small companies, published on Tuesday, the National Federation of Independent Companies said that the net percentage of owners that increase average sales prices increased 10 points from January to 32% net, the largest monthly increase since April 2021 and the third highest in the history of the survey. The percentage of owners who reduce their prices is 10 points lower than a year ago. Meanwhile, a 29% net said they planned to increase prices in the next three months, 3 points more than January and the highest reading in 11 months.
“Inflation remains an important problem, it took second place because of the main problem, the quality of work,” said Nfib’s chief economist Bill Dunkelberg, in the statement.
A monthly survey separated from the expectations of the consumer published this week by the Federal Reserve of New York found that the average inflation expectation increased by 0.1 percentage points on the horizon of one year to 3.1% and remained unchanged in the horizons of three years and five years, both with 3.0%.
There is still disagreement about whether inflation expectations remain “anchored” and, therefore, how the Federal Reserve responds to continuous changes in the economy, that is, if it will maintain the highest or lowest indebtedness costs. Analysts with Citi expect continuous progress in the slowdown in inflation, despite Trump’s rhetoric, and see the interest rates that fall to 125 basic points, or 1.25%, of their current levels this year.
Others do not agree.
“We anticipate [February data] It will show the first signals of the China Rate up of 10% of President Trump on central goods, together with the inflation of non -service resilient services that can be maintained by the effects of residual seasonality, ”said BNP analysts Paribas Financial Group in a client note.
