Breitbart Business Digest: The Economy Refuses to Play Nice with the Fed
The Fed is stuck between crosscurrents: too strong to ease, too shaky to hike. The best they can do is what they’ve been doing—waiting for the fog to lift.

The Fed is stuck between crosscurrents: too strong to ease, too shaky to hike. The best they can do is what they’ve been doing—waiting for the fog to lift.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday that he expects the first quarter GDP figures will be revised up, hinting that the contraction recorded in the government’s first estimate of economic growth for the January through March period might be flipped into

Tariff front-running led to a historic surge in imports in March.

This week, America’s new economic doctrine came into focus thanks to a pair of speeches from Vice President JD Vance and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The services sector is now strengthening, dampening fears of an economic downturn.

Treasury Secretary Casts America as Global Capital’s Natural Home, Promises “Golden Age” for Investment and Industry.

Yesterday’s Breitbart Business Digest explained that the front-running on tariffs came from businesses and not from consumers. Today we expand on the evidence and explain why this is bullish for the economy.

Despite all the hand-wringing over stock market declines, stocks were basically unchanged in April.

Economists had been expecting 130,000 jobs and an unemployment rate unchanged at 4.2 percent.

The supposed culprit of the import surge—consumer panic buying—simply isn’t real. Consumers are not front-running the tariffs, and that is good news.

Larry Kudlow, Trump’s former NEC Director, points to business investment surge, tax policy tailwinds.

The disappointing headline GDP number was enough to spark another round of recession hand-wringing across Wall Street and the financial press. But the details tell a different story.

100 days into the Trump administration, inflation has come down to zero.

A surge of imports and decline of government spending caused the economy to contract at the start of 2025.

The American economy, like Mark Twain, may be forced to declare that rumors of its death are greatly exaggerated.

U.S. consumers’ confidence in the economic outlook fell sharply in April, driven by rising concerns over trade policy and financial market volatility, even as their assessment of current business and labor market conditions remained steady, according to a report released

U.S. businesses kept up plans to hire more workers, defying predictions of tariff-led hiring slowdown. Government openings fell, as the Trump administration’s agenda comes into focus.

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said last week that he would be inclined to look through a short-term rise in inflation stemming from newly proposed tariffs, signaling that he sees the labor market, rather than inflation alone, as the critical guide for monetary policy decisions in the months ahead.

Consumer sentiment remains deeply depressed; and the division between Democrats and Republicans has reached historic, almost unimaginable levels.

Democratic sentiment hits all-time low as concerns about inflation, trade policy weigh on outlook.

If Trump’s tariffs are such a favor to entrenched business interests, why are those very businesses sounding the alarm?

New orders for durable goods rose 9.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted $315.7 billion, after a 0.9 percent increase in February. Economists had forecast a more modest 1.4 percent rise.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stood before the Institute of International Finance this morning and delivered a speech that ought to be remembered as a turning point in U.S. economic diplomacy.

The economic data keeps coming in much stronger than expected.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday called for sweeping reforms at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, urging the institutions to abandon what he described as “mission creep” and return to their founding charters focused on macroeconomic stability, trade,

Removing Jerome Powell as Fed chair might not give Trump the interest rate cuts he wants.

President Trump has been calling for the Federal Reserve to begin cutting interest rates, arguing that its policy is too tight for a slowing economy. Investors increasingly seem to agree with Trump.

“He’s always been too late,” the president wrote, adding that Powell is a “major loser” whose decisions appear politically motivated.

Call it protectionism if you like. But the proper name is older and more precise. It’s called the optimum tariff. And at long last, it’s being put to work for America.

Some of the most brilliant economists in history developed a theory proving that under the right conditions, tariffs can make a country richer.

U.S. consumer prices fell in March, pushed down by a decline in the price of goods and defying predictions that President Trump’s tariff plans would push up prices. This was the first drop in consumer prices in nearly three years and only the second decline since inflation accelerated under Joe Biden to the worst rates in decades.

Although President Trump’s announcement that some of the tariffs would be paused for 90 days got all the attention, the real fireworks began several minutes earlier, when the U.S. Treasury held its much-anticipated 10-year bond auction.

What looked like the start of a global financial panic turned into a show of strength from the White House and a stunning rally on Wall Street.

The Dow jumped 5.9 percent, the S&P 500 rose 7.3 percent, and the Nasdaq soared 8.9 percent, capping a dramatic rebound from a week of steep losses triggered by spiking bond yields and escalating global tariffs.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday the U.S. is moving toward trade agreements with key allies that will form the basis for a united economic front against China.

The reciprocal tariffs are doing what they were meant to do: putting leverage on the table, shaking foreign complacency, and opening the door to new trade arrangements that better serve American workers and producers.

White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Stephen Miran delivered a landmark address at the Hudson Institute this week that helpfully explains the economic doctrine of President Trump’s second term.

The market, like a poker player who stayed in the hand far too long, seemed to be operating under the assumption that Trump would eventually fold.

Employers in the United States added 228,000 workers to their payrolls in March, the Department of Labor said Friday, and the unemployment rate inched up to 4.2 percent. Economists had been expecting just 140,000 jobs would be added in March.

If bull markets are breeding grounds for irrational exuberance, bear markets tend to produce prophets of doom.
