New Year's First U.S. Economic Indicators Good... "Trump Policy Is a Reef"

[Anchor]
New U.S. unemployment claims hit an eight-month low last week, showing the first U.S. economic data released in the new year was good.

However, Wall Street and economists believe uncertainty caused by U.S.-first policies, such as the second Trump administration's tariff bomb, will be a rocky one.

I'm correspondent Lee Seung-yoon from New York.

[Reporter]
New U.S. jobless claims fell 9,000 from a week ago to 211,000 last week, the lowest in eight months.

It is the first economic indicator released in the new year, which is lower than experts' expectations and means that the U.S. labor market is solid.

With the U.S. Federal Reserve saying it would slow the pace of rate cuts, Wall Street is eyeing employment indicators to gauge the extent and timing of further cuts.

Wall Street, however, has worried that Trump's tariff bomb could spark trade retaliation, which could be a rocky patch for global economic growth.

"The risk of a broader trade war appears to be undervalued," Goldman Sachs said, predicting it would "increase downward pressure on U.S. stocks."

Of course, he added that Trump's hard-line remarks could be a negotiating tactic.

[David Solomon / Goldman Sachs CEO: The impact that tariffs will have on the market and whether they will cause slower growth or inflation will depend on what measures are actually in place.]

European economists as well as the U.S. are worried that Trump's policies could cause stagflation, which could cause a recession and price increases, doing more harm than good.

However, the U.S. business community, which opposed the U.S.-China trade war until four years ago, has remained silent.

Analysts say that while profitability has deteriorated due to the Chinese economic downturn, supply chain diversification has put U.S. companies' distancing from China on track to some extent.

I'm YTN's Lee Seungyoon from New York.