Yes, but only because it was so extremely high recently.
Figure 1: Top panel – Economic Policy Uncertainty – trade category (blue); Bottom panel – Trade Policy Uncertainty (blue). NBER defined peak-to-trough recession dates shaded gray. Source: policyuncertainty.com, Iacoviello, NBER.
Off topic – The economic effect of Israel’s war against peace:
WTI up 7.6% today, Brent up 7.0%. The rule of thumb is that oil price increases are inflationary when growth is above trend, contractionary when growth is below trend. That has to do with the preponderance of the effect, not the only effect. Still stagflationary. The Fed can only choose to run tight picy, easy policy or do nothing, so the preponderant effect matters.
DXY added 0.3% today, less that you’d normally expect when war breaks out in the Middle East, but still up. Ten-year yield up 0.1%. So we aren’t seeing a safe-haven bid, even though the S&P shed 1.1% today.
So Israel’s effort to prevent an Iran nuke deal has delivered a modest stagflationary shock, while erosion of U.S. safe-haven status continues apace. The extension of steel and aluminim tariffs to appliances may have contributed to dollar and equity losses today:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-s-50-steel-tariffs-are-coming-for-your-next-fridge-and-dishwasher/ar-AA1GEewd