Economic Impact of Ukraine War Revealed in Fed Meeting Minutes

U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell testifies at a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 3, 2022. Tom Williams-Pool/Getty Images

The minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on March 15–16 shed light on the economic impact of the Ukraine war on the U.S. economy, specifically with regard to inflation and the Fed’s interest rate.

Participants in the meeting “judged that the implications of the war for the U.S. economy were highly uncertain, but in the near term, the invasion and related events were likely to create significant additional upward pressure on inflation and could weigh on economic activity,” the minutes said.