---
title: "Fed officials expect tariffs to boost prices; White House downplays risk"
description: "Federal Reserve officials anticipate that rising U.S. import tariffs will lead to higher prices, though it's uncertain if this inflation will be temporary or persistent. Atlanta Fed President Bostic n"
type: "news"
locale: "en"
url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/241105344.md"
published_at: "2025-05-21T01:03:04.000Z"
---

# Fed officials expect tariffs to boost prices; White House downplays risk

> Federal Reserve officials anticipate that rising U.S. import tariffs will lead to higher prices, though it's uncertain if this inflation will be temporary or persistent. Atlanta Fed President Bostic noted that businesses may have exhausted strategies to delay price impacts. Meanwhile, White House adviser Stephen Miran downplayed the tariffs' effect on inflation, citing weak consumer price index reports. Fed officials emphasize the need to monitor inflation expectations and the potential long-term effects of tariffs on the economy.

Fed officials unsure whether impact will be fleeting or persistent

Key White House adviser says tariffs have had no meaningful effect on inflation

Atlanta Fed President Bostic says firms may have done all they can to delay impact

By Howard Schneider

AMELIA ISLAND, Florida, May 20 (Reuters) - Federal Reserve officials said on Tuesday that higher prices are coming on the back of rising U.S. import tariffs, with the open question now whether the inflation shock will be fleeting or more persistent.

"One thing that we've heard is that a lot of the tariff impact to date has actually not shown up in the numbers yet. There's been a lot of front-running, building inventories and all those sorts of things. And we are hearing from an increasing number of businesses that those strategies ... are starting to run their course," Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said on the sidelines of a conference in Florida.

"If these pre-tariff strategies have run their course, we're about to see some changes in prices, and then we're going to learn how consumers are going to respond to that," said Bostic, who now expects the U.S. central bank will have to wait longer to have clarity about the economy's direction and make any changes to interest rates.

"We should wait and see where the economy is going before we do anything definitive," said Bostic, who now anticipates only a single quarter-percentage-point cut in the Fed's policy rate this year and several months on the sidelines waiting for the effect of Trump administration policies to become clear.

So far the main impact appears to be in sentiment surveys showing households and businesses are less confident about the economic horizon and expect higher inflation.

In an interview on Bloomberg Television on Tuesday, Stephen Miran, who chairs the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, pushed back on the idea that the tariffs imposed by the administration so far and potentially added in coming weeks would result in meaningful inflation.

"We have been introducing tariffs since day one of this administration," Miran said, yet there has "been no real meaningful effect on inflation," with recent consumer price index reports coming in weaker than expected.

But Fed officials and analysts say they expect the impact has just not filtered through yet to the economy.

Walmart WMT, the world's largest retailer and a major importer of goods from China, said last week that price increases were on the way, comments that drew a rebuff from President Donald Trump.

"We can control what we can control," Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said during the company's quarterly earnings call. Even trimming the tariffs on Chinese goods to 30%, as the administration recently did in backing off a more exorbitant 145% levy, "will result in higher prices," he said.

INFLATION EXPECTATIONS

The waiting game for Fed officials may prove a long one. The central bank has kept its policy rate in the current 4.25%-4.50% range since December, but says it will remain difficult to anticipate where the economy is heading until the tariff issue and other policies are settled for good - and enough time lapses after that to gauge the impact.

In comments to the Economic Club of Minnesota on Tuesday, St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem said the central bank needed to guard first and foremost against a rise in inflation expectations, and key to that effort will be assessing if coming price hikes seem like one-time increases or risk turning into something more persistent.

The tariff plans may have been scaled back, but still "seem likely to have a significant impact on the near-term economic outlook," Musalem said, with "direct one-off effects on the prices of imported final goods, indirect effects on the prices of domestically produced goods and services, and possibly second-round effects on inflation."

Deciding in advance that the effects will fade on their own, "runs the risk of underestimating the level and persistence," and creating more inflation trouble in the future, he said.

### Related Stocks

- [WMT.US - Walmart](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/WMT.US.md)

## Related News & Research

| Title | Description | URL |
|-------|-------------|-----|
| 彭博新聞報道，康菲石油正在考慮出售其價值 20 億美元的二疊紀資產 | 2 月 20 日（路透社）- 據彭博新聞週五報道，康菲石油正在探索出售其部分二疊紀盆地資產，這是其更廣泛的投資組合精簡的一部分，消息人士透露。這些資產是通過與 Concho Resources 和 Shell（SHEL.L）的交易在多年中收 | [Link](https://longbridge.com/en/news/276478732.md) |
| 學習英偉達刺激芯片銷售，AMD 為 “AI 雲” 借款做擔保 | AMD 為擴大市場份額祭出金融 “狠招”！為初創公司 Crusoe 的 3 億美元購芯貸款提供擔保，承諾在其無客户時 “兜底” 租用芯片。這一復刻英偉達 “租卡雲” 路徑的策略雖能短期推高銷量，但也令 AMD 在 AI 需求放緩時面臨更大的 | [Link](https://longbridge.com/en/news/276401504.md) |
| 沃爾瑪四季度財報超預期但盈利指引不及預期，CEO 稱 “美國低收入家庭只能勉強維持生計” | 沃爾瑪 Q4 營收超預期，新財年盈利指引（每股 2.75-2.85 美元）遠低於市場預期的 2.96 美元，顯示通脹壓力下消費者支出不確定性猶存，拖累股價下跌 1.38%。財報印證 K 型” 分化：高收入家庭驅動增長，低收入羣體 “錢包吃緊 | [Link](https://longbridge.com/en/news/276398633.md) |
| 谷歌突然發佈 Gemini 3.1 Pro：核心推理性能直接翻倍 | 谷歌發佈了最新的大模型 Gemini 3.1 Pro，其推理性能較去年發佈的 Gemini 3 Pro 翻倍。在 ARC-AGI-2 評測中，Gemini 3.1 Pro 得分 77.1%，顯示出強大的推理能力。新模型支持多源數據綜合和複雜 | [Link](https://longbridge.com/en/news/276396515.md) |
| 最高法裁決後特朗普動用替補選擇：加徵 10% 全球關税 | 美國總統特朗普在最高法院裁決後宣佈將加徵 10% 的全球關税，以補救被推翻的關税措施。根據《1974 年貿易法》第 122 條款，現有的關税將全面生效。最高法院裁定特朗普政府的部分關税措施缺乏法律授權。市場風險提示，投資需謹慎。 | [Link](https://longbridge.com/en/news/276477629.md) |

---

> **Disclaimer**: This article is for reference only and does not constitute any investment advice.
