NEW YORK, June 5 (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs ( GS ) has

moderated its risk-taking since U.S. President Donald Trump's

April tariff announcement, and the Wall Street bank is braced

for more uncertainty, a top executive said.

"We have moderated our risk positioning since April 2nd - I

think that's a sensible thing for us to do," Goldman President

John Waldron said in a podcast released by the investment bank

on Thursday.

"We're absorbing a lot of risk from our clients. We want to

continue to do that, but we also, where we can, we (pare) our

risk and stay a little bit closer to home."

Goldman is readying for continued uncertainty in the coming

months, which means keeping a greater liquidity cushion, he

said.

Financial markets have been turbulent since Trump's

so-called "Liberation Day," when he announced plans to increase

tariffs on trading partners.

Waldron, who is widely seen as the likely successor to

Goldman CEO David Solomon, said the tariff move was "very, very

disruptive."

Some companies are now starting to make business decisions

based on assumptions that tariffs will be raised to a range of

10% to 15%, he said.

"We're moving into now an adjustment phase, and you'll see,

I think, some more decision-making on capital spend, M&A

transactions, capital return, stock buybacks," Waldron said.

The U.S. economy is still strong, backed by a solid labor

market and consumer spending, he said.

"All those factors in the U.S. to me lead to a likely

scenario where we don't have a recession," he said.

Meanwhile, Waldron warned investors were getting concerned

about an unsustainable U.S. fiscal deficit.

"The bond market is starting to be heard, and I hope that

gets some attention in the halls of Congress," he said.

Rating agency Moody's cut the pristine U.S. sovereign credit

rating by one notch last month, the last of the major ratings

agencies to downgrade the country, citing concerns about the

nation's growing $36 trillion debt pile.

The biggest question for markets is the path of interest

rates, particularly in the long term, Waldron said.

"We're seeing a lot of increase in duration in the rate

curves in the United States and Japan and many other countries -

and I think that could be a brake on economic growth," he said.