The Federal Reserve delivered no major surprises in its latest policy decision , and Chair Jerome Powell indicated that the central bank does not plan to make any shocking moves in the near future, either. Instead, the Fed seems to be waiting alongside investors and business leaders to see when and how potential trade deals shake out. “Jerome Powell sounded like virtually all of the CEOs I heard on earnings calls over the past month,” Chris Grisanti, chief market strategist at MAI Capital Management, told CNBC. “He sees rising uncertainty, and he’s waiting to see what happens before he makes important decisions. It’s like the entire world is caught in that doom loop, and Jerome Powell is no different than the rest of the folks trying to figure out the business cycle.” That waiting period is not without risks. The Federal Open Market Committee made changes to its official policy statement , hinting that central bankers may be growing more worried about the labor market and potential stagflation, when growth slows and inflation stays high. “The Committee is attentive to the risks to both sides of its dual mandate and judges that the risks of higher unemployment and higher inflation have risen,” the policy-setting committee said in its statement. Fed Chair Jerome Powell added in his press conference after the two-day meeting ended that there is risk of a “tension” between those two goals. This was the first Fed meeting since President Donald Trump unveiled his far-reaching tariff policy on April 2. Many of those initial import tax rates have since been changed one way or another, but the administration still has not agreed to any new trade deal. U.S. and Chinese officials are set to meet in Switzerland this weekend. The central bank seems resigned to wait and see how those discussions play out. The next FOMC meeting comes June 17-18. “Based on this statement, Powell has thrown the ball back into Trump’s court by citing risks ahead. As a result, they will react when there is more clarity. Right now the only way to get that clarity is to get answers and not hopes of fruitful discussions from Washington,” Jay Woods, chief global strategist at Freedom Capital Markets, said in a statement. For his part, Trump has called for the Fed to go ahead and cut rates, given the fact that inflation has eased in some parts of the economy. He has even referred to the Fed chair as “Mr. Too Late.” But Powell on Wednesday knocked down the idea of preemptive rate cuts and said the Fed would wait for economic growth and inflation data to show a clear direction, one way or the other. “It’s not a situation where we can be preemptive, because we actually don’t know what the right responses to the data will be until we see more data,” Powell said. — CNBC’s Alex Harring contributed reporting.
