Forbes Chairman and editor-in-chief Steve Forbes warns over U.S. prices going up amid global tariff tensions and weighs in on Federal Reserve leadership.
Tariffs, the Fed and America’s crumbling reserve currency – the economic volatility is painting a gloomy fiscal picture that will result in a recessionary slowdown, according to one expert.
“The dollar is weakening, and that always leads to future inflation,” Forbes Media Chairman and editor-in-chief Steve Forbes said on “Varney & Co.” Monday.
“Since 2023, gold’s gone from $1,800 to $3,400 an ounce. That’s a sure sign we’re going to have a weak dollar ahead,” he expanded, “which means ultimately turbulence and higher prices in the marketplace. Just look at the 1970s, and we can see where that leads unless something is done about it now. But I don’t see any sign that the authorities have any idea, constructively, of what to do, sadly.”
Wall Street’s top indexes each lost more than 1% and the U.S. dollar fell to a three-year low on Monday, Reuters reported, as President Donald Trump’s public criticism of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell continues and markets battle global trade and tariff tensions.
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Trump most recently called Powell a “major loser” and said the central bank should make “preemptive cuts” to interest rates. Trump’s comments come after he said in a Truth Social post last week that Powell is “always TOO LATE AND WRONG” and that, “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough,” though the chair has confirmed serving the remainder of his term through May 15, 2026.
On Monday, April 21, Wall Street’s top indexes traded lower and the U.S. dollar hit a three-year low. (Getty Images)
“Unfortunately, the Federal Reserve does not know much about inflation; it thinks prosperity causes inflation. The whole way the Fed is modeled, the way they do monetary policy is wrong,” Forbes chimed in.
“So what are you going to do with the Fed? Lowering interest rates isn’t going to cure what tariffs are doing and the uncertainties creating the prices that it’s raising with the economy,” he further posited. “The Fed can determine the value of the dollar and focus on that, but there’s nothing they can do about the rest of the inflation that is being introduced now.”
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An Allianz analysis released last week noted that, following the announcement of Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs, investors initially moved to traditional safe-haven assets like U.S. Treasuries and the dollar.
However, once the scale of the “reciprocal” tariffs became clear, the focus on the inflationary impact and expectations that tariffs will push inflation higher and delay Fed rate cuts that had been expected to arrive earlier spurred a move away from those safe havens.
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Fox News contributor Gerry Baker discusses whether President Donald Trump’s tariffs get in the way of tax reform on ‘Varney & Co.’
“If we don’t get this thing resolved in the next 90 days, you’re gonna see you have prices having to go up because people aren’t going to stop trading, and they have to buy certain things,” Forbes said.
“I think you’re going to see a lot of cases where there’ll be some deals, they’ll highlight it and give extensions to the others,” he added. “But the uncertainty is a killer and people are holding back. So I don’t know what effect that will have on prices, but it will lead to a slow economy, perhaps a recessionary economy, unnecessarily.”
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FOX Business’ Eric Revell contributed to this report.
