Driving in fog, standing on ice: The Fed and the fragile trade truce

The Weekly Briefing from Capital Economics

The Fed is trying to calibrate policy in the midst of a government shutdown that’s effectively cut off the flow of data. Jerome Powell says that when you’re driving in fog, you should slow down – but there’s still a case for the FOMC to follow this past week’s rate cut with another move in December, says Deputy Chief North America Economist Stephen Brown. He talks to David Wilder about why the state of the US economy argues for another cut this year, but fewer in 2026 than markets currently expect.

That Fed meeting wasn’t the week’s only big event. In Korea, Donald Trump held the first face-to-face meeting of his second term with Xi Jinping. The one-year truce resulting from that meeting has eased near-term US-China trade tensions, but much could still go wrong, warns China Economist Leah Fahy. She discusses what might plunge bilateral relations back into crisis, the health of China’s economy, and why – even if Washington clears Chinese firms to buy cutting-edge AI chips – they may not do so.

Analysis and events referenced in this episode:

Drop-In: The Fed, ECB and Bank of England – Latest decisions and policy outlook
Capital Economics Events

Read: Fed cuts and ends QT, but further loosening not guaranteed
Read: Bank of Canada cuts but thinks it has done enough
Xi-Trump talks buy China time to decouple at its own pace
The economic and market impact of AI