JACKSON HOLE, Wyoming - Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell made it clear on Friday the U.S. central bank would not shy away from pivoting to interest rate cuts in the final weeks of a presidential election campaign and that protecting the job market was now its top priority.
Powell and his fellow policymakers, including others appointed by Trump, such as Fed Governor Christopher Waller, have moved steadily in the last four weeks toward a consensus rate cut at next month's meeting, citing economic data that has increasingly shown inflation on the wane as risks to the labor market have increased.
With price pressures easing and many hiring measures starting to weaken, Powell said the central bank would now "do everything we can to support a strong labor market," a comment some analysts said opened the door to an initial cut of half a percentage point as opposed to the more traditional quarter-percentage-point increments.
Even the current 4.3% level is about what the central bank feels is consistent with the Fed's 2% inflation target over the long run. For years, Israel has been carrying out attacks against what it has described as Iran-linked targets in Syria, where Tehran's influence has grown since it began supporting President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war that started in 2011. Reported Israeli strikes on Syria have intensified sharply since the start of the war in Gaza last October. In a statement, the Syrian defence ministry said its air defences had shot down some of the Israeli rockets.
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