Fed's Miran says cost of tariffs won't be borne by US consumers

Oct 16 (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Governor Stephen Miran on Thursday said the downside of the Trump administration's tariffs has been "nowhere near" what many had predicted, and repeated his view that the cost of tariffs will not be borne by U.S. consumers, contrary to recent research but in line with what President Donald Trump has said.

Miran was a White House economic advisor until a month ago when he took his job as Fed governor, and he plans to return to his White House job after his term at the Fed is up in January.

"As the importer, we're more flexible because we can allocate our demand across borders; we can buy from a country that we have a better trade deal with, we can make stuff at home. The producers, their factories are stuck in place; the factories can't move across country borders," Miran said at Semafor's World Economy Summit. "And so this means that the burden of the tariff will ultimately fall on the exporting countries based on the relative elasticities that are estimated in the literature. ...It may take some time for that to happen, but in the long run, that's what's going to happen."