Why Trump's trade war isn't worrying Wall Street economists yet

Take Trump’s 25 percent steel tariffs. After stripping out food and energy, consumer prices are poised to rise by three basis points in response, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said in a research note Monday.

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The worry remains that Trump may just be getting started. If the president delivers on all his tariff threats, $475 billion in goods would be affected, and core inflation would speed up by about 15 basis points, according to Goldman. That’s still a small increase, but one that might get the attention of the Federal Reserve, which could spur more aggressive policy tightening.

“The impact of tariffs on $50 billion here and there, on its own, is relatively limited,” said Torsten Slok, chief international economist at Deutsche Bank AG. “The real danger continues to be the uncertainty about what’s next.”

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