Jerome H Powell: Opening remarks

Speech by Mr Jerome H Powell, Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, at the "Conference on Monetary Policy Strategy, Tools, and Communications Practices", sponsored by the Federal Reserve, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, 4 June 2019.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

Good morning. I am very pleased to welcome you here today. This conference is part of a first-ever public review by the Federal Open Market Committee of our monetary policy strategy, tools, and communications. We have a distinguished group of experts from academics and other walks of life here to share perspectives on how monetary policy can best serve the public.

I'd like first to say a word about recent developments involving trade negotiations and other matters. We do not know how or when these issues will be resolved. We are closely monitoring the implications of these developments for the U.S. economic outlook and, as always, we will act as appropriate to sustain the expansion, with a strong labor market and inflation near our symmetric 2 percent objective. My comments today, like this conference, will focus on longer-run issues that will remain even as the issues of the moment evolve.