CHICAGO • Federal Reserve officials would need to consider more stimulus aimed at boosting the economy if growing trade tensions lead to a sharper pullback, a Fed bank president said Wednesday.

Chicago Fed President Charles Evans has said he thought the Fed would need to cut rates this year by at least one more quarter-percentage point, following last week’s quarter-point cut, to lift inflation back to the Fed’s 2% target.

But Wednesday, he suggested trade and other global developments “have perhaps created more headwinds against that, and it would be reasonable to do more than just that. I don’t know,” he said.

“You could take the view that the risks now had gone up,” and with an increased chance of a shock that could eventually prompt the Fed to return rates to near zero, “that would also call for more accommodation.”

Two other Fed officials this week said lower interest rates migth be warranted this year.

The Fed voted last week to cut its benchmark rate to a range between 2% and 2.25%. Financial markets have convulsed since that decision and especially after President Donald Trump’s subsequent announcement of new tariffs on China, which prompted trade and currency escalations between Washington and Beijing.

Three central banks in the Asia-Pacific region lowered interest rates in an unexpectedly aggressive fashion earlier Wednesday amid worries of growing fallout from the trade despite between the world’s two largest economies.

The trade war has hit hard markets in Southeast Asia, a fast-growing region deeply intertwined with global supply chains supported by demand for Chinese goods.

Central bankers in India and New Zealand had already started lowering their rates when they cut their policy rates again on Wednesday, while officials in Thailand reduced rates for the first time this year, reversing a late 2018 increase. The Philippines central bank is expected to follow its Asian peers with another rate reduction on Thursday.

The moves illustrate how central banks, which have less room to counteract downturns with historically low rates, are moving quickly to shore up global growth during a period of heightened trade uncertainty. In the U.S., market volatility has led to a sharp rally in U.S. Treasury bonds, sending down yields to their lowest levels since 2016.

Of investors’ reaction to the daily trade drama, Evans said, “I can’t say I see anything necessarily wrong with how they’re reacting.”

Evans also said he had taken note of how Wednesday’s policy actions by economic authorities in Asia. The Fed’s next scheduled meeting is Sept. 17-18 in Washington.

“We are going to be digesting everything that’s going on,” he said. “Once a substantial number of central banks consider repositioning their monetary policy, it’s natural that other central banks might be thinking about that too.”

With central banks in big, developed countries either lowering rates or poised to do so, emerging-market central banks have greater flexibility to stimulate their economies without having to worry about capital fleeing from their financial markets to chase higher returns elsewhere. Central banks in Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea and South Africa have also reduced policy rates in recent months.