{"id":41288,"date":"2026-02-18T16:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T16:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=41288"},"modified":"2026-02-18T16:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T16:08:09","slug":"trump-adviser-says-ny-fed-economists-should-be-disciplined-for-publishing-study-on-tariffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=41288","title":{"rendered":"Trump adviser says NY Fed economists should be \u2018disciplined\u2019 for publishing study on tariffs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description o3-type-body-base\"><span>Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=731f8c9a-bb7f-4388-a551-e63ac6a20a7f\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>A top White House official has said Federal Reserve economists should be \u201cdisciplined\u201d for publishing a report showing US businesses and consumers were shouldering the bulk of the costs from Donald Trump\u2019s tariffs. <\/p>\n<p>Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, described the recent study from the New York Fed as \u201can embarrassment\u201d and said it failed to capture the full impact of the president\u2019s levies. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s I think the worst paper I\u2019ve ever seen in the history of the Federal Reserve system,\u201d Hassett told CNBC on Wednesday. \u201cThe people associated with this paper should presumably be disciplined.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He added: \u201cWhat they\u2019ve done is they\u2019ve put out a conclusion which has created a lot of news that\u2019s highly partisan based on analysis that wouldn\u2019t be accepted in a first semester econ[omics] class.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hassett\u2019s comments are the latest broadside against the Fed, an independent federal agency, by the Trump administration. <\/p>\n<p>Trump has attempted to remove governor Lisa Cook, while the justice department has launched a criminal investigation into chair Jay Powell. The president has also lambasted Powell for not cutting interest rates, calling him a \u201cmoron\u201d and a \u201cstubborn mule\u201d. <\/p>\n<p>The New York Fed declined to comment on Hassett\u2019s remarks. The White House did not respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n<p>The abrasive rhetoric from Hassett, a close adviser to Trump who had been a frontrunner to be the next chair of the Fed, comes as the administration looks to combat concerns about rising costs of living and sell its economic message to voters ahead of this year\u2019s midterm elections. <\/p>\n<p>The New York Fed study, released last week, suggested US businesses and consumers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/c4f886a1-1633-418c-b6b5-16f700f8bb0d\" title=\"\" data-trackable=\"link\">paid nearly 90 per cent of the cost<\/a> of Trump\u2019s tariffs in 2025, with the burden decreasing slightly as the year progressed. <\/p>\n<p>It flew in the face of the administration\u2019s insistence that foreign exporters would assume the burden of the levies, which have been deployed liberally by the president in an attempt to reshape the global trading order.<\/p>\n<p>The tariffs have helped provide significant revenues for the federal government, bringing in $30bn in January and $124bn in the fiscal year to date \u2014 over 300 per cent more than the same period in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Hassett criticised the paper, which was based on an analysis of customs data, for \u201conly looking at changes in prices\u201d and not paying sufficient attention to changes in trade volumes. He said a more holistic study would show \u201cconsumers were made better off by the tariffs\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe basic theory of President Trump\u2019s tariffs is: sure, we\u2019re importing stuff from China, but we\u2019ve got producers in the US who make stuff, maybe at a slightly higher price,\u201d Hassett said. \u201cIf we bring the stuff home, create the demand at home, then that will hurt China and drive up wages in the US and American consumers will be better off.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The study did not break down how US consumers and businesses split the burden. But its findings echo other recent papers \u2014 including from Germany\u2019s Kiel Institute and the National Bureau of Economic Research \u2014 which showed Americans were shouldering most of the costs of the tariffs. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/731f8c9a-bb7f-4388-a551-e63ac6a20a7f\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":41289,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}