Fed's Goolsbee: Hard data shows economy is solid, but there is fear around tariffs

By Ann Saphir

(Reuters) -Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Austan Goolsbee on Tuesday said while the "hard" data show the underlying U.S. economy is solid, the labor market strong, and inflation down from its peak in 2022, the imposition of a broad new set of tariffs under President Donald Trump could lead to renewed inflation or an economic slowdown.

With imports accounting for just 11% of the U.S. economy, Goolsbee said in an interview on Fox News, the impact of tariffs on overall prices could be limited.

"The fear is if it jumps out of the 11% lane," he said, either because import levies are applied to components and parts and raise the cost of production in a broad set of industries, "or people start freaking out and change their behavior; and if the consumer stops spending or businesses stop investing because they're uncertain or they're afraid where we're headed, that would be a bit of a mess."

Trump on Wednesday plans to impose broad new but as yet undefined "reciprocal" tariffs, intensifying a global trade war that has fed anxiety on a volatile Wall Street. The new levies come on top of 25% tariffs on auto imports already set to take effect on April 3 and stiff levies on aluminum and steel imposed last month.

Hard data includes measures of the labor market like the unemployment rate, which in February was still a low 4.1%. But increasingly the soft data, from surveys and other qualitative sources, have been weak, Goolsbee noted, including sharp declines in business and consumer sentiment.

Another example: a closely watched survey on Tuesday that showed U.S. manufacturing contracted in March even as prices at the factory gate increased, with purchasing manufacturers citing tariffs as a major factor.

Last month the Fed left its policy rate in the 4.25%-4.50% range. Fed Chair Jerome Powell and other central bankers have said the economy's strength means there is no rush to cut rates, and uncertainty over Trump's tariffs policies and how they will hit the economy mean it is the right call to wait to see what happens before adjusting monetary policy.

"There's an uncertainty that people are expressing to us, which is tinged with a fear," Goolsbee said on Tuesday. "They don't want to go back to the kind of inflationary environment that we had in '21 and '22. And we're just going to have to see how this plays out."

(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Chris Reese)