Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the United States expects China to make good on its pledge to buy more U.S. goods under a trade deal signed last year by President Donald Trump, while noting that a reciprocal rollback of some tariffs could be a “desirable outcome” that helps ease inflation.
Yellen made the remarks in an interview with Reuters, in which she was asked whether removing some tariffs on Chinese goods could alleviate some domestic price pressures in the United States, where inflation has been running at a 30-year high. The Treasury secretary answered that tariffs tend to raise prices for domestic businesses and that at least some of those costs tend to be passed on to consumers, so removing them would have a “disinflationary” effect.
