Brian Chappatta, Columnist

Powell Admits Fed Has No Playbook for a Trump Trade War

The Fed chair calls the policy unprecedented, and the president wastes no time in proving him right.

August 23, 2019 at 3:56 PM UTC

Brian Chappatta is managing editor of Bloomberg News' leveraged finance and distressed debt teams. He was previously managing editor and team leader of its wealth group. Before that he was a Bloomberg Opinion markets and finance columnist and a bonds reporter for Bloomberg News.

"Challenges for Monetary Policy" now includes a never-ending barrage of White House insults.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell doesn’t like how President Donald Trump’s trade war is impacting the U.S. economy. To make matters worse, the central bank has no playbook for how to deal with the current situation, he said in prepared remarks at the Kansas City Fed’s Economic Policy Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

He had no idea the starkest example would come about an hour after he delivered his speech when Trump announced he would have an afternoon response to China’s threat to impose additional tariffs on $75 billion of American goods. The stock market, which had been up after Powell spoke, immediately reversed course and was down 1.7% just before noon.