For whatever it’s worth to you in the context of a hopelessly indeterminate US macro outlook, the BLS will publish inflation estimates for the world’s largest economy this week.

Economists reckon underlying price growth at 0.3% on a MoM basis for April. That’d be a re-acceleration from the prior month, when core inflation was negligible.

The update comes as the US and China negotiate for a deescalation in trade tensions which many worry will result in sharply higher prices for consumers, and that’s assuming it makes sense to import Chinese goods at all with tariffs in the triple-digits.

After chatting with Chinese interlocutors in Geneva over the weekend, Scott Bessent suggested Beijing and Washington aren’t as far apart on key issues as initially feared. Bessent has acknowledged in recent days that current US-China tariff rates constitute a de facto trade embargo and thus aren’t sustainable.

Tuesday’s inflation tally will probably reflect some impact from the trade war, but there’s still time to avert a dramatic upsurge assuming cooler heads prevail. The problem is that Trump’s not famous for being cool-headed, and even in a scenario where current tariff rates are halved, the read-across for consumer prices would be onerous.

In any case, April’s data will be viewed as old news, particularly in light of Jerome Powell’s remarks following the May FOMC meeting. The overarching theme of Powell’s press conference was uncertainty.

Remember: The average tariff rate was somewhere between 2% and 3% before Trump was inaugurated. So, even at 15% (which is to say even in a scenario where the rate’s 10ppt lower than that implied by the “Liberation Day” levies), we’re staring at a five-fold increase.

“[T]he market will be looking beyond the current pace of consumer inflation toward what occurs during the summer months [and] investors’ bias to dismiss the recent reports as stale information isn’t likely to change in the near-term,” BMO’s Ian Lyngen remarked, adding that “the trade rules are still being rewritten, and it’s not until the ink is finally dry that investors will have sufficient confidence that assumptions won’t be completely upended yet again.”

Investors will also get a “fresh” (i.e., one-month-old) read on consumer spending with Thursday’s US retail sales report. Consensus is looking for a very subdued advance if the print shows a gain at all. It’s possible headline nominal spending was flat in April, when one tariff front-running effect faded.

As a reminder, retail sales jumped in March by the most in more than two years courtesy of car-buying catalyzed presumably by the imminent imposition of auto tariffs.

On Friday, the University of Michigan will release the preliminary read on consumer sentiment for May, which’ll include updates on the poll’s inflation expectations series. I hesitate to say things can’t possibly get any worse on those metrics, but… well, there it is. The April vintage had a solid claim on being the worst University of Michigan release ever, and I can tell you from personal experience that rock-bottom’s a solid foundation for a recovery.

Also on deck: PPI and the first of this month’s US housing data including builder sentiment (covering May) and starts / permits (covering April).

Needless to say, the data will take a backseat to China trade headlines. It appeared on Sunday that the administration’s keen to project meaningful progress in the interest of bolstering both US equities and Trump’s flagging approval ratings.