Fed's Waller: More cuts likely though timing depends on inflation progress

By Howard Schneider

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Inflation should continue falling in 2025 and allow the U.S. Federal Reserve to further reduce interest rates, though at an uncertain pace, Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said on Wednesday.

Waller said that while it was true inflation "appears to have stalled" above the Fed's 2% target in the waning months of 2024, market-based inflation estimates, as well as one-month and shorter-term inflation readings, have left him confident that inflation is continuing to ease in the U.S. even if the pace of improvement is less certain.

"This minimal further progress has led to calls to slow or stop reducing the policy rate," Waller said in remarks to an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development event in Paris. "However, I believe that inflation will continue to make progress toward our 2% goal over the medium term and that further reductions will be appropriate."

"The pace of those cuts," he said, "will depend on?how much progress we make on inflation, while keeping the labor market from weakening."

In later comments during a question and answer session, Waller said he felt the current policy rate was high enough to continue pushing inflation lower without causing a recession.

The current benchmark rate is "restrictive but not enough to throw us into a recession," said Waller, comments consistent with a Fed outlook for a continued drop in inflation alongside continued economic growth.

The Fed reduced its policy rate of interest a full percentage point in the final three meetings of 2024, but is expected to leave the rate steady in the current 4.25% to 4.5% range at the upcoming Jan. 28-29 policy meeting.

Waller did not say how many rate cuts he thought would be appropriate this year, but noted that among Fed officials "the range of views is quite large, from no cuts to as many as five cuts" that would reduce the Fed's policy rate by another 1.25 percentage points.

Along with slower progress on inflation, Fed officials have been reluctant to commit to further rate cuts because the economy itself is performing well, with growth above estimates of long-run potential and continued hiring and wage growth that, in turn, has supported consumer spending.

"I continue to believe that the U.S. economy is on a solid footing," Waller said, with "nothing in the data or forecasts that suggests the labor market will dramatically weaken over coming months."

The Fed gets new jobs data on Friday for the month of December.

Fed policymakers are also trying to sort how the policies of the incoming Trump administration may change the course of the economy, with the possible impact of tariffs one front-of-mind concern.

Waller said that while increased tariffs "raise the possibility that a new source of upward pressure on inflation could emerge in the coming year," he said it would probably not cause a persistent increase in price pressures and thus "are unlikely to affect my view of appropriate monetary policy."

Uncertainty over Trump's policies, however, make the prospect of predicting the next year all the more difficult, with issues like the price of imports possibly influenced by new tariffs, and the labor supply possibly diminished by stricter immigration and deportation.

Waller said he did not think the most "draconian" policies would be implemented by the incoming Trump administration, but said that deciding what to write down in a set of December economic projections was "a very difficult problem."

"I have no idea what is coming," he said.

(Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Andrea Ricci)