#PowellRemarks

CHICAGO, April 16 (Reuters) - U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Wednesday the Fed would wait for more data on the economy's direction before changing interest rates, but cautioned that President Donald Trump's tariff policies risked pushing inflation and employment further from the central bank's goals.

Powell, speaking for the first time since Trump last week paused some of the more stringent of his barrage of tariffs, also characterized the ensuing market volatility of recent weeks as a logical processing of the Trump administration's dramatic shifts in trade policy - not a sign of stress that warranted a Fed response. – This week, U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver, II (D-MO) joined Reps. Seth Magaziner (D-RI) and Chip Roy (R-TX), along with 43 other lawmakers, in reintroducing the bipartisan Transparent Representation Upholding Service and Trust (TRUST) in Congress Act, which would effectively ban Members of Congress, their spouses, and dependent children from trading individual stocks. To reduce opportunities for insider trading among Members of Congress, the TRUST in Congress Act would require lawmakers and their immediate family to either divest from individual stock holdings or move their investments into a qualified blind trust during their entire tenure in Congress, ensuring they cannot profit off the nonpublic information provided to lawmakers.

“Just as we prevent athletes from betting on games in which they can have a direct impact on the outcome or inside information about the team’s performance, it is common sense to ban lawmakers from investing in stocks,” said Congressman Cleaver. “At a time when the American people’s faith in our democratic institutions is at an all-time low, lawmakers must take steps to demonstrate they are committed to serving the public, not their personal stock portfolios. That’s why I’m proud to be a cosponsor of the bipartisan TRUST in Congress Act.”