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Bank of America’s CEO says economic growth is ‘better than people think’ and the Fed should stay on hold

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Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan: The economy ought to be holding up better than people think

Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said Wednesday that consumers are continuing to spend and economic growth should be solid though slower this year.

Despite surveys indicating that confidence is at a nearly three-year low amid increasing worries about inflation, Moynihan told CNBC that spending data shows consumers are still shelling out money, though shifting away from goods and into services.

“We’re in this classic moment … where the consumer is saying, ‘I’m getting more pessimistic,’ in some of the surveys and things like that,” he said during a “Squawk Box” interview. “But if you actually look what they’re doing day to day, they continue to spend, which means the economy ought to be holding up better than people think.”

From a numbers standpoint, that means gross domestic product growth this year of closer to 2% from recent trends closer to 3%, according to the banking chief. Some of the slowdown will come from President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which Moynihan estimated will cut about 0.4 percentage point off growth in the near term before the economy adjusts.

However, he called the 2% level “trend growth. That’s what we’ve all been trying to get to for 10 or 15 years after the financial crisis.”

“We see the consumer continue to be solid, and that should bode well for the economy,” Moynihan added. “There’s a lot of questions out there, and I think that will sort through. But right now, we’re not talking about what could happen, we’re talking about is happening. The consumer continues to spend pretty strongly for the first part of this year.”

Fed outlook

The interview came the same day that the Federal Reserve will issue its latest decision on interest rates. Markets give almost no chance to a reduction at the meeting, and Moynihan backed up the bank’s call that not only will the central bank not move Wednesday, but it also will be on hold through 2026.

“I would think, though that the Fed would be a little cautious about cutting, not knowing what the impact of tariffs is going to be,” he said. “It would seem that maybe they’d want to hold on to the firepower that they’ve built up over the last year or so… They shouldn’t be premature to try to boost the economy when it’s growing at 2%.”

Moynihan added that it would be better to keep interest rates had a “real interest rate” that was closer to 3% than the near-zero that was prevalent from the financial crisis into the Covid pandemic.

Economics

Trump advisor Hassett confident tariffs will stay despite judges’ ruling

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National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett speaks to reporters at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 14, 2025. 

Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

A top economic advisor to President Donald Trump expressed confidence Thursday that court rulings throwing out aggressive tariffs will be overturned on appeal.

Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, said in an interview that he fully believes the administration’s efforts to use tariffs to ensure fair trade are perfectly legal and will resume soon.

“We’re right that America has been mishandled by other governments,” Hassett said during a Fox Business interview. “This trade negotiation season has been really, really effective for the American people.”

The comments follow a ruling from judges on the Court of International Trade who said Trump exceeded his authority on tariffs, which are aimed both at combating barriers against American goods abroad and stemming the flow of fentanyl across the U.S. border.

While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that fentanyl is the primary driver in domestic overdose deaths, the judges ruled that related tariffs “fail because they do not deal with the threats set forth in those orders.”

Hassett bristled at the ruling and said the administration will continue its anti-fentanyl efforts.

“These activist judges are trying to slow down something right in the middle of really important negotiations,” he said. “The idea that the fentanyl crisis in America is not an emergency is so appalling to me that I am sure that when we appeal, this decision will be overturned.”

The administration has multiple options to get around the judges’ ruling, including other sections of trade laws it can utilize. However, Hassett said that’s not the plan at the moment.

“The fact is that there are measures that we can take with different numbers that we can start right now. There are different approaches that would take a couple of months to put these in place,” he said. “We’re not planning to pursue those right now, because we’re very very confident that this ruling is incorrect.”

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Economics

America’s immigration detention centres are at capacity

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IN APRIL Todd Lyons, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), lamented that it takes too long to deport illegal immigrants. At the Border Security Expo in Phoenix he told a crowd of startup bosses vying for government contracts that a better deportation system would function more like Amazon, the tech giant whose delivery drivers zigzag the country at record speed. “Like Prime, but with human beings,” he said.

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Economics

Demand for American degrees is sinking

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Trump’s war on universities is driving talent away

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