{"id":351168,"date":"2026-02-22T22:53:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T22:53:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/351168\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T22:53:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T22:53:17","slug":"after-tariff-study-trump-loyalist-wants-fed-authors-disciplined-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/351168\/","title":{"rendered":"After tariff study, Trump loyalist wants Fed authors \u2018disciplined\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kevin Hassett<\/a>, the White House\u2019s resident tariff optimist, has identified a new threat to the republic: a fairly standard economics paper.<\/p>\n

The director of the national economic council and Trump <\/a>loyalist described a new study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York as \u201can embarrassment\u201d \u2013 indeed, \u201cthe worst paper I\u2019ve ever seen in the history of the Federal Reserve<\/a> system\u201d. <\/p>\n

The authors, he added, should \u201cpresumably be disciplined\u201d.<\/p>\n

Their offence? Concluding that Americans pay most \u2013 nearly 90 per cent \u2013 of the cost of US tariffs. Foreign exporters trimmed prices a little, but nowhere near enough to absorb the levies.<\/p>\n

The economics are uncontroversial \u2013 multiple independent analyses confirm what standard economic theory predicts \u2013 but the politics is another story. <\/p>\n

President Donald Trump has insisted the burden of tariffs \u201chas fallen overwhelmingly on foreign producers\u201d and with the current US administration, a paper suggesting otherwise can get you a public dressing-down.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t an isolated outburst. Trump previously called on Goldman Sachs to replace its chief economist, Jan Hatzius, over his tariff predictions. He fired Erika McEntarfer at the Bureau of Labour Statistics for apparently delivering jobs data he didn\u2019t like. <\/p>\n

More recently, US treasury secretary Scott Bessent complained about \u201cfake news\u201d following a report by Deutsche Bank analyst George Saravelos, saying the bank\u2019s chief executive had called to say it \u201cdoes not stand by that analyst\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"Could Simon Harris\u2019s savings scheme for the \u2018middle classes\u2019 prove to be a sound investment?<\/p>\n

As for Hassett, what he meant by \u201cdisciplined\u201d is unclear. <\/p>\n

The New York Fed is independent, and its papers carry the usual disclaimer distancing the institution from the authors\u2019 views. Still, many at the Fed will surely be relieved that Hassett, until recently viewed as the likely replacement for outgoing Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell, will not be in any position to decide what counts as acceptable research (the job is set to go to Kevin Warsh).<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, analysts and researchers must surely be treading carefully, given the message they are getting \u2013 if your model contradicts the message, revise the model.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kevin Hassett, the White House\u2019s resident tariff optimist, has identified a new threat to the republic: a fairly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,18,182,19,17,19217,6221,1411],"class_list":{"0":"post-351168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-federal-reserve","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-kevin-hassett","14":"tag-trump-presidency","15":"tag-us-tariffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116116744083060026","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}