President Donald Trump’s Director of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, appeared on Fox Business today to discuss the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the delayed September update on consumer inflation which is due on Friday.
According to the consensus forecast via Econoday.com, “Headline CPI is projected to rise to 3.1% in year-over-year terms through September, which translates to the highest pace in nearly a year-and-a-half. Core CPI is expected to hold steady, also at a 3.1% year-over-year rate.”
Hassett told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, Director of the National Economic Council during the first Trump administration, “One of the places where we’ve seen things that weren’t moving in the direction we would like in the past was food prices. And we’ve had a really, really big series of meetings where sometime soon, there’s gonna be a really big agricultural policy that’s going to help our ranchers, for example.”
Hassett: “One of the places where we’ve seen things that weren’t moving in the direction we would like in the past is food prices. And we’ve had a really really big series of meetings where sometime soon, there’s gonna be a really big agricultural policy that’s gonna help our… pic.twitter.com/KKunuuylyG
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Hassett added with his signature smile: “If you cut all the red tape out that’s costing farmers and ranchers lots and lots of money, then it’s good for them and it’s good for consumers, and so we are working hard to get inflation down and growth high, even with the government shutdown.”
Note: Although inflation has risen in three of the last four months and is slightly higher than it was a year ago, Trump told the United Nations General Assembly in September: “Grocery prices are down, mortgage rates are down, and inflation has been defeated.”
Trump critics and skeptics including business influencer DeSota Wilson responded to Hassett’s take, “Prices for nearly everything are skyrocketing, yet it seems like there’s more attention given to helping foreign nations, like Argentina, than to the needs of American citizens.”
Note: With the Trump administration supporting the troubled Argentine economy with a bailout that could potentially reach $40 billion, some ‘America First’ Republicans are expressing concerns that the U.S. is rewarding an economic rival which has gamely stepped up its soybean exports to China after Trump’s tariffs brought U.S.-China soybean trade to a halt.