Jerome Powell: “I believe the terms of the Fed's purchase of the corporate bonds could have been improved so that benefits were more…”

In effect, we went on hold when we saw the size of the tariffs, and essentially all inflation forecasts for the United States went up materially as a consequence of the tariffs.

Job growth, he said, has slowed considerably and that the downside risks to employment are rising.

Tariffs this year are likely to push up prices and weigh on economic activity.

If we're going to do that successfully, we need to do it in a completely nonpolitical way, which means we don't take sides, we don't play one side against the other, we stay out of issues that are really not our bailiwick.