01:51 PM EST, 03/07/2025 (MT Newswires) -- US monetary policymakers would want "greater clarity" around the Trump administration's policy changes before making their next move on interest rates, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Friday.

The White House is in the process of implementing "significant" policy changes across trade, immigration, fiscal policy, and regulation, Powell said in remarks prepared for a speech at a US Monetary Policy Forum in New York.

"While there have been recent developments in some of these areas, especially trade policy, uncertainty around the changes and their likely effects remains high," Powell said. "As we parse the incoming information, we are focused on separating the signal from the noise as the outlook evolves."

The Trump administration could impose matching tariffs on Canadian lumber and dairy products as early as Friday to match Canada's current tariffs on US goods, Bloomberg News reported Friday, citing US President Donald Trump.

On Thursday, the White House issued temporary tariff exemptions for Canadian and Mexican goods that comply with a North American trade pact, media outlets reported. The US administration recently doubled its levy on Chinese imports. Canada and China have announced retaliatory measures.

In January, the central bank's Federal Open Market Committee held its benchmark lending rate steady at 4.25% to 4.50% following three straight cuts and said inflation remained "somewhat elevated."

The path to bringing inflation down to policymakers' target will continue to be "bumpy," Powell said Friday. "We pay close attention to a broad range of measures of inflation expectations, and some near-term measures have recently moved up," he said. "We see this in both market- and survey-based measures, and survey respondents, both consumers and businesses, are mentioning tariffs as a driving factor."

Powell reiterated his recent remarks that the FOMC doesn't "need to be in a hurry" to adjust interest rates and that monetary policy was not on a preset course. "Despite elevated levels of uncertainty, the US economy continues to be in a good place," he said.

Markets widely expect policymakers to again leave interest rates unchanged later this month, according to the CME FedWatch tool.