Federal Reserve press conference, 2019-07-31 — Chair Jerome Powell

Question (Nick Timiraos, Wall Street Journal): If I could follow up, I guess in May—in May it seemed as if you were setting a higher bar to cut rates: There would need to be a deterioration in the outlook. In June, you seemed to suggest that if the outlook didn’t improve, there might be a rate cut. Where is that bar right now, because I think there’s some confusion about how the Committee is responding.
Answer: Yes. So we, as we noted—we noted at the bottom of the statement that language, which really says how we’re thinking about it. So it says, as we’re contemplating the future path of the target range for the federal funds rate, we’ll continue to monitor the implications of incoming information—and it talks about that language. So, you know, I can’t— all I can tell you is, we’ll be looking at weak global growth. We’ll be looking very carefully to see how that’s happening. And I think you see—you learn—every cycle you learn about these things. So we will see whether growth is picking up, whether it’s bottoming out. We’ll see that picture. We’ll also see on trade. You know, we’re going to be seeing—I think we’ve learned a lot on trade in this cycle. I think we’ll continue to learn more, and on inflation we will. So, in addition, the U.S. economy itself is—the performance of the U.S. economy will enter into that. So I would love to be more precise, but with trade, it is a factor that we have to assess in kind of a new way. Those are the things that we’ll be looking at, and—you know, in making our decisions going forward.