{"id":130522,"date":"2025-03-19T13:34:30","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T13:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/interest-rates-oil-execs-and-trump-tariffs-a-busy-day-for-us-economy-usa-today\/"},"modified":"2025-03-19T13:34:30","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T13:34:30","slug":"interest-rates-oil-execs-and-trump-tariffs-a-busy-day-for-us-economy-usa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/interest-rates-oil-execs-and-trump-tariffs-a-busy-day-for-us-economy-usa-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Interest rates, oil execs and Trump tariffs: A busy day for US economy – USA TODAY"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interest rates will take center stage Wednesday amid President Donald Trump<\/a>‘s high stakes gamble to remake the U.S. economy by levying tariffs to protect U.S. businesses<\/a> and firing thousands of federal workers to trim the cost of government.
Also Wednesday, Trump<\/a> will host top oil executives at the White House to discuss his plans to boost domestic energy production against a backdrop of falling crude prices and\u00a0looming trade wars.
The Federal Reserve is expected to announce Wednesday<\/a> that it will hold its key interest rate steady for now. Questions, however, swirl around its forecast for future rate cuts.
Trump\u2019s\u00a0aggressive tariffs<\/a>\u00a0are projected to drive inflation and slow economic growth. That presents a conundrum for the Fed, which usually raises rates, or keeps them high, to ease inflation \u2212 but cuts interest rates to strengthen a stagnating economy.
The Fed forecast on rate cuts could tip its thinking on where the economy is headed in the coming months.
Trump and Treasury Secretary\u00a0Scott Bessent\u00a0have not dismissed the possibility of a recession, although Bessent said Tuesday that the economy is performing better than the media is suggesting and there is no reason to expect a recession.
The Trump administration already has raised tariffs on hundreds of billions in imports from China, Mexico and Canada. The next round, due to be announced April 2, will involve duties on \u201ctrillions\u201d of dollars in imports from around the world, the Washington Post<\/a> reported, citing a person familiar with internal planning. Exactly how the new tarrifs will work has spurred extensive discussions involving Vice President J.D. Vance, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessentand others, according to the Post.
Trump has defended the tariffs as crucial to returning manufacturing to the U.S. and to draw concessions from other countries. He and top administration officials have shrugged off the slumping stock market and even a possible recession as short term medicine that might be needed to provide the U.S. economy with long term health.
Support for federal employees has slipped in recent years. A 2022 Pew survey found confidence in career civil servants has declined<\/a>: 52% of Americans express a \u201cgreat deal\u201d or \u201cfair amount\u201d of confidence in these workers, down from 61% in 2018.
From the conservative grassroots Tea Party to the MAGA movement, Americans have long expressed deep resentment about the power that the government has over their daily lives. Over time, federal employees and their civil service perks have come to personify taxpayer frustration with government waste and excess.
\u201cFederal workers have nearly guaranteed employment, higher salaries, student loan relief, better insurance and a pension,\u201d one person wrote on Reddit. \u201cThey also treat the rest of us like peasants.\u201d Read more here<\/a>.
\u2212 Jessica Guynn and Bailey Schulz<\/em>
The\u00a0Trump<\/a>\u00a0administration was scheduled to continue the process of reinstating over 24,000 recently fired<\/a>\u00a0probationary workers following\u00a0a pair of orders from federal judges<\/a>\u00a0last week that found the terminations illegal. The reinstatements, spanning 18 departments, were\u00a0outlined in a filing Monday<\/a>\u00a0by the Department of Justice in federal court in Maryland after a judge asked for a report on efforts to reinstate the employees.
The Trump administration, which is appealing the rulings, said reinstatement would be a long and laborious process. All employees offered reinstatement to full duty would need to be onboarded again in their departments. This would include retraining, filling out human resources paperwork, obtaining new security badges, reenrolling in benefits programs, reinstituting applicable security clearances and receiving government-furnished equipment. And they could be fired again in the weeks ahead. Read more here<\/a>.
\u2212 Joey Garrison<\/em>
An independent nonprofit that’s funded by Congress to promote conflict prevention and resolution internationally is now in the\u00a0middle of a struggle<\/a>\u00a0with Trump and DOGE. DOGE staffers with support from the Washington Metropolitan Police Department made their way into the\u00a0U.S. Institute of Peace<\/a>\u00a0building Monday in a dramatic confrontation after being denied entry Friday and told the agency is not part of the executive branch.
Trump has sought to dismantle the institute, which was founded by Congress in 1984 with the purpose of “protecting U.S. interests by helping to prevent violent conflicts and broker peace deals abroad,” its website says.
When the DOGE personnel returned Monday with law enforcement agents and evicted USIP officials, its employees called police and reported a break-in. White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said USIP had not complied with Trump’s reduction order from February.
Most of the USIP board and CEO George Moose were fired by the Trump administration, a termination Moose is contesting. He told reporters his organization has been speaking with administration officials for weeks and making clear the agency is not under their jurisdiction.
Tariffs can apply to exports but are are primarily levied on imports, typically to protect industries in the country levying them. Tariffs make imports more expensive, thus making local goods cheaper by comparison. Tariffs also can provide income that can be used to support local industries, fund public programs or cover government expenditures.
And they can serve as bargaining tools to win concessions from trading partners.
“While tariffs may seem to penalize foreign producers by making their goods or services less competitive, the reality is that U.S. consumers and businesses ultimately bear the cost,” the Wilson Center scholars Diego Marroqui\u0301n Bitar\u00a0and Valeria Moy write in a\u00a0“Tariffs 101” analysis<\/a>.
Contributing: Paul Davidson<\/em><\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interest rates will take center stage Wednesday amid President Donald Trump‘s high stakes gamble to remake the U.S. economy by levying tariffs to protect U.S. businesses and firing thousands of federal workers to trim the cost of government.Also Wednesday, Trump will host top oil executives at the White House to discuss his plans to boost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":130523,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}