U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks at the Economic Club of Chicago on April 16, 2025.
Kamil Krzaczynski | AFP | Getty Images
The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note rose Monday as investors weighed concerns over tariffs and comments by President Donald Trump criticizing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield was 6 basis points higher at 4.391%. The 2-year Treasury yield was 2 basis points lower to 3.779%.
One basis point is equal to 0.01%. Yields and prices move in opposite directions. Bond markets were closed on Friday for the Easter holiday.
The moves come after Trump on Friday levied another salvo at Powell for not lowering interest rates. The president vocalized his discontent with the Fed chair’s economic policy leadership during a question-and-answer session with reporters.
“If we had a Fed Chairman that understood what he was doing, interest rates would be coming down, too,” Trump said, pointing to examples of falling prices. “He should bring them [interest rates] down.”
A day prior, Powell sounded the alarm on growth and inflation risks as a result of the Trump administration’s tariffs. He described a scenario in which the U.S. could find it difficult to balance the need to temper inflation and support growth.
“We may find ourselves in the challenging scenario in which our dual-mandate goals are in tension,” Powell said in remarks made to the Economic Club of Chicago. “If that were to occur, we would consider how far the economy is from each goal, and the potentially different time horizons over which those respective gaps would be anticipated to close.”
Concerns over the impact of Trump’s tariff regime on global growth pushed investors toward safe-haven assets like gold on Monday. Spot gold prices — which also got a boost from a weaker dollar — hit a record high above $3,400 an ounce.
