June CPI Throws Cold Water On Fed Rate Hawks
By Peter Navarro | RealClearMarkets | July 14, 2026
This wasn’t egg on the face. It was a whole omelet.
On Monday, Fed Governor Christopher Waller was effectively putting a rate hike back on the table if this week’s core inflation number came in hot. On Tuesday, the CPI report answered him: no heat, no spiral, no case for a hike.
Prices fell in June. Core CPI was essentially flat. Real wages rose.
That is not a green light for the Fed hawks. It is a stop sign.
Waller should not have been flirting with the nonsense of rate hikes into an energy-price shock to begin with. It’s both foolish and ignores history—both Greenspan and Bernanke successfully held steady or cut during energy price shocks.
Why? A stagflationary oil-price shock already does much of the contractionary work of a rate hike. It taxes consumers at the pump, cuts real wages, drains purchasing power, and slows demand without any help from the Fed.
The June CPI report shows why patience is the right call—and rate cuts should not be off the table.