“The tariffs are very fluid right now,” Ron Vachris, chief executive of the retail giant Costco, recently told analysts on an earnings call. “It’s hard to really give any predictions on what we can do, but we are prepared.”

Others feel the same way about the ebb and flow of tariffs:

• “It’s very fluid right now. It’s almost every day new scenarios coming out, new numbers being calculated.” — Markus Kamieth, chief executive of BASF

• “The whole tariff situation remains fluid and we have to react.” — Robert Kay, chief executive of Lifetime Brands

• “Though the environment ahead remains fluid, we will be focused on offsetting any additional tariffs.” — Karen Parkhill, chief financial officer of HP

It is often said that uncertainty is bad for business, muddling hiring and investment plans. The unpredictability of Mr. Trump’s trade policy has played a role in tumbling stock markets and falling measures of consumer and business confidence. Targeted tariffs by other countries in response to Mr. Trump’s moves further cloud the economic outlook, making it trickier for corporate executives, Federal Reserve policymakers and others to react.

“Until we know what’s actually going to go into effect, it will be very difficult for our customers to decide what to do,” Scott Herren, chief financial officer of Cisco Systems, said on a call with investors, after describing the tariff situation — like so many others — as “very fluid.”

Executives are generally eager to talk about liquidity, but not this kind.

Economists don’t expect another rate cut for a while, as the central bank waits for more clarity on an increasingly uncertain outlook given President Trump’s policies on tariffs, immigration, widespread federal job cuts, among other things.

The Fed’s benchmark rate is set at a range of 4.25 to 4.5 percent. In an effort to tamp down sky-high inflation, the central bank began lifting rates rapidly — from near zero to above 5 percent — between March 2022 and July 2023. Prices have cooled considerably since then, and the Fed pivoted to rate cuts, lowering rates in September, November and December.

More recently,Mr. Trump’s inflation-stoking polices could prompt the Fed to delay more rate cuts. But at the same time, longer-term interest rates set by the markets have been drifting down, influencing a wide range of consumer and business borrowing costs.

Auto Rates

What’s happening now: Auto rates have been trending higher and car prices remain elevated, making affordability a challenge. And that is before U.S. tariffs threaten to push prices up even more.

Car loans tend to track with the yield on the five-year Treasury note, which is influenced by the Fed’s key rate. But other factors determine how much borrowers actually pay, including your credit history, the type of vehicle, the loan term and the down payment. Lenders also take into consideration the levels of borrowers becoming delinquent on auto loans. As those move higher, so do rates, which makes qualifying for a loan more difficult, particularly for those with lower credit scores.

The average rate on new car loans was 7.2 percent in February, according to Edmunds, a car shopping website, up from 6.6 percent in December and 7.1 percent in February 2024 . Rates for used cars were higher: The average loan carried an 11.3 percent rate in February, compared with 10.8 percent in December and 11.6 percent in February 2024.

Where and how to shop: Once you establish your budget, get preapproved for a car loan through a credit union or bank (Capital One and Ally are two of the largest auto lenders) so you have a point of reference to compare financing available through the dealership, if you decide to go that route. Always negotiate on the price of the car (including all fees), not the monthly payments, which can obscure the loan terms and what you’ll be paying in total over the life of the loan.

Credit Cards

What’s happening now: The interest rates you pay on any balances that you carry had edged slightly lower after the most recent Fed cuts, but the decreases have slowed, experts said. Last week, the average interest rate on credit cards was 20.09 percent, according to Bankrate.

Much depends, however, on your credit score and the type of card. Rewards cards, for instance, often charge higher-than-average interest rates.

Where and how to shop: Last year, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sent up a flare to let people know that the 25 biggest credit-card issuers had rates that were eight to 10 percentage points higher than smaller banks or credit unions. For the average cardholder, that can add up to $400 to $500 more in interest a year.

Consider seeking out a smaller bank or credit union that might offer you a better deal. Many credit unions require you to work or live someplace particular to qualify for membership, but some bigger credit unions may have looser rules.

Before you make a move, call your current card issuer and ask them to match the best interest rate you’ve found in the marketplace that you’ve already qualified for. And if you do transfer your balance, keep a close eye on fees and what your interest rate would jump to once the introductory period expires.

Mortgages

What’s happening now: Mortgage rates have been volatile. Rates peaked at about 7.8 percent late last year and had fallen as low as 6.08 percent in late September. Solid economic data and concerns about Mr. Trump’s potentially inflationary agenda pushed rates a bit higher again, though they’ve steadied in recent weeks.

Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages don’t move in tandem with the Fed’s benchmark, but instead generally track with the yield on 10-year Treasury bonds, which are influenced by a variety of factors, including expectations about inflation, the Fed’s actions and how investors react.

The average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 6.65 percent as of Thursday, up slightly from 6.63 percent the previous week but down from 6.74 percent a year ago.

Other home loans are more closely tethered to the central bank’s decisions. Home-equity lines of credit and adjustable-rate mortgages — which carry variable interest rates — generally adjust within two billing cycles after a change in the Fed’s rates.

Where and how to shop: Prospective home buyers would be wise to get several mortgage rate quotes — on the same day, since rates fluctuate — from a selection of mortgage brokers, banks and credit unions.

That should include: the rate you’ll pay; any discount points, which are optional fees buyers can pay to “buy down” their interest rate; and other items like lender-related fees. Look to the “annual percentage rate,” which usually includes these items, to get an apples-to-apples comparison of your total costs across different loans. Just be sure to ask what’s included in the A.P.R.

Savings Accounts and C.D.s

What’s happening now: Everything from online savings accounts and certificates of deposit to money market funds tend to move in line with the Fed’s policy.

Savers are no longer benefiting from the juiciest yields, but you can still find returns at online banks of 4 percent or more. “The Fed taking its foot off the gas with rate cuts means that these yields are likely to stay high for a while, but it won’t last forever,” said Matt Schulz, chief consumer finance analyst at LendingTree, the online loan marketplace.

Traditional commercial banks’ yields, meanwhile, have remained anemic throughout this period of higher rates. The national average savings account rate was recently 0.6 percent, according to Bankrate.

Where and how to shop: Rates are one consideration, but you’ll also want to look at providers’ history, minimum deposit requirements and any fees (high-yield savings accounts don’t usually charge fees, but other products, like money market funds, do). DepositAccounts.com, part of LendingTree, tracks rates across thousands of institutions and is a good place to start comparing providers.

Check out our colleague Jeff Sommer’s columns for more insight into money-market funds. The yield on the Crane 100 Money Fund Index, which tracks the largest money-market funds, was 4.14 percent as of Tuesday, down from 5.15 percent in February 2024.

Student Loans

What’s happening now: There are two main types of student loans. Most people turn to federal loans first. Their interest rates are fixed for the life of the loan, they’re far easier for teenagers to get and their repayment terms are more generous.

Current rates are 6.53 percent for undergraduates, 8.08 percent for unsubsidized graduate student loans and 9.08 percent for the PLUS loans that both parents and graduate students use. Rates reset on July 1 each year and follow a formula based on the 10-year Treasury bond auction in May.

Private student loans are a bit of a wild card. Undergraduates often need a co-signer, rates can be fixed or variable and much depends on your credit score.

Where and how to shop: Many banks and credit unions want nothing to do with student loans, so you’ll want to shop around extensively, including with lenders that specialize in private student loans.

You’ll often see online ads and websites offering interest rates from each lender that can range by 15 percentage points or so. As a result, you’ll need to give up a fair bit of information before getting an actual price quote.

But the Fed is expected to see things differently on Wednesday — choosing to hold rates steady in the face of rising prices and slowing growth — in a move that seems destined to stoke Mr. Trump’s anger.

At the heart of the tension are Mr. Trump’s tariffs, which he has promised to apply more expansively beginning April 2. The White House contends its protectionist policies can rejuvenate American manufacturing and reduce the country’s reliance on imports, but economists believe that Mr. Trump risks touching off a protracted global trade war that will badly harm the U.S. economy.

The latest dour projection arrived Tuesday, when Fitch Ratings cut its U.S. growth forecast for this year to 1.7 percent from 2.1 percent. It explicitly pointed to Mr. Trump’s tariffs — and the “huge uncertainty” around them — as two of the drivers behind a potential economic slowdown and short-term rise in prices.

The uncertainty is likely to freeze any rate cutting at the Fed, perhaps straining an already tortured relationship between Mr. Trump and Jerome H. Powell, the man he handpicked to serve as chair of the central bank in 2017.

In his first term, the president described Mr. Powell as the “enemy,” and blasted his colleagues as “boneheads,” in a bid to browbeat the Fed into slashing interest rates. Mr. Trump at one point even considered firing Mr. Powell, raising fears that the White House might try to undermine the Fed’s political independence.

Soon after returning to the White House, the president revived his attacks: He said, again, that he would “demand that interest rates drop immediately,” and one of his leading advisers — the tech billionaire Elon Musk — signaled support for an audit of the central bank. When the Fed chose to hold rates steady at its last meeting, Mr. Trump charged anew that Mr. Powell and the Fed had “failed to stop the problem they created with inflation.”

“If the Fed had spent less time on DEI, gender ideology, ‘green’ energy, and fake climate change, Inflation would never have been a problem,” Mr. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

The big question now is when — and to some extent whether — the Fed will be able to restart cuts this year.

When the Fed last released quarterly economic projections in December, officials penciled in two rate cuts that would reduce borrowing costs by half a percentage point in 2025. But economists now expect Mr. Trump’s policies to lead to more intense price pressures and slower growth, a tough dynamic for the central bank and one that could prompt policymakers to scale back how many cuts they project going forward.

Here’s what could change and how to interpret those updates.

The dot plot, decoded

When the central bank releases its Summary of Economic Projections each quarter, Fed watchers focus on one part in particular: the dot plot.

The dot plot will show Fed policymakers’ estimates for interest rates through 2027 and over the longer run. The forecasts are represented by dots arranged along a vertical scale — one dot for each of the central bank’s 19 officials.

Economists closely watch how the dots are shifting, because that can give a hint about where policy is heading. They fixate most intently on the middle, or median, dot. That is regularly quoted as the clearest estimate of where the central bank sees interest rates going over a given time period.

The central bank is trying to achieve two things when it sets policy: low, stable inflation and a healthy labor market.

When it perceives elevated inflation to be a concern, it raises interest rates to make borrowing money more expensive, which cools the economy. By taking steam out of the housing and labor markets — as it did between March 2022 and July 2023 — higher rates helped to weaken demand and made it harder for companies to raise prices without losing customers, eventually weighing on inflation.

With inflation more in check, officials began cutting rates in September, kicking off with a big half-percentage-point reduction. At the time, the Fed’s chair, Jerome H. Powell, billed it as a move that would help to safeguard a strong economy, rather than a panicky response to unexpected weakness. The Fed lowered interest rates twice more in 2024, bringing them down to the current level of 4.25 percent to 4.5 percent.

Based on shifting perceptions about the risks around inflation and growth, economists broadly expect officials to pencil in either one or two quarter-point cuts for this year.

Are interest rates still restrictive?

When reading the dot plot, it’s important to pay attention to where interest rate estimates fall in relation to the longer-run median projection. That number is sometimes called the “natural” or “neutral” rate. It represents the theoretical dividing line between monetary policy that is set to speed up the economy versus a policy meant to slow it down.

The neutral estimate has steadily ticked higher in the past year and in December stood at 3 percent.

At the last meeting, Mr. Powell described rates at their current level as “meaningfully restrictive,” suggesting the Fed sees its policy settings as continuing to weigh on the economy and helping to bring down inflation. Economists will be watching whether the chair changes his tune on that point. If he suggests that rates are no longer as restrictive, it could mean the Fed now sees less capacity to lower rates with inflation still too high.

Inflation concerns resurface

Price pressures have eased significantly since peaking in 2022, but inflation overall has yet to return to the Fed’s 2 percent target. Progress toward that goal has been very bumpy in recent months, and with Mr. Trump seemingly committed to an aggressive tariff regime, there is increased concern about this progress could get thrown even further off course.

Fed officials moved their estimates for inflation sharply higher in December, with some already starting to layer in assumptions about what to expect from another Trump administration at that point. Back then, the majority expected the core personal consumption expenditures price index — which strips out volatile food and energy items and is the Fed’s preferred gauge — to hover at 2.8 percent by the end of the year. As of January, it stood at 2.6 percent.

Policymakers could raise those estimates again on Wednesday given the scope and scale of Mr. Trump’s plans to date.

Economists and policymakers broadly agree that tariffs lead to higher consumer prices, but whether those increases lead to persistently higher inflation is not entirely clear. Much will depend on how extensive the tariffs end up being, how long they are kept in place and ultimately how businesses and consumers respond.

Is the soft landing at risk?

As much as economists and policymakers are worried about resurgent inflation, they are also concerned about growth, despite the labor market having been much more resilient than expected despite soaring inflation and elevated interest rates.

In December, Fed officials expected the economy to grow 2.1 percent this year, a more moderate pace than 2024 but still a healthy clip. They also expected the unemployment rate to steady around 4.3 percent, 0.2 percentage point higher than its level as of February.

Estimates pertaining to growth are likely to be lowered in the latest set of projections, while unemployment forecasts could rise as officials factor in Mr. Trump’s plans to cull the federal work force and cut spending more broadly.

Americans’ feelings about the economy have already significantly soured on fears that all of the uncertainty surrounding Mr. Trump’s trade policy will also lead businesses to halt investment and hiring. Still, most economists do not expect a recession, given the economy’s strong foundation.

So far, Fed officials have largely avoided commenting on an uncertain outlook while current economic data remain solid. A healthy labor market has allowed the central bank to continue to point to economic resilience as it holds interest rates high in response to stubborn inflation.

But in addition to announcing its decision on interest rates at its monthly meeting on Wednesday, the Fed will publish officials’ first economic projections since December.

“Since then, the U.S. economic environment has changed dramatically,” said Matt Colyar, an economist at Moody’s Analytics.

Trump administration officials have largely brushed off investors’ concerns, saying that the economy remains on sound footing and that a modest pullback from recent stock market highs is nothing to worry about. The S&P 500 briefly entered a correction last week after four straight weeks of losses. The index is 8.6 percent lower than its record high last month, and down more than 4 percent so far this year.