(Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve needs to make it clear at its policy meeting this week that it may have to cut rates if there are continuing signs that the economy is slowing, according to Mohamed El-Erian.

For now, the Fed should postpone rate cuts while also avoiding raising inflation expectations, El-Erian, president of Queens’ College, Cambridge, told Bloomberg TV Wednesday.

But the central bank should communicate all of this “in a way that convinces people that you will have the possibility of rate cuts not because inflation is coming down - the so-called ‘good news cuts’ - but because growth is problematic — ‘bad news cuts,’” he said.

El-Erian, a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, noted that he will be worried if the Fed continues to hold off on interpreting the big policy moves made by the Trump administration, due to the importance of those policies to the economy.

“They can no longer maintain the ‘we don’t speculate, we don’t guess’ on policies,” he said. “They have got to take a view.”

He will also be concerned if the Fed officials change the data they use to evaluate inflation as they have in the past, which could suggest that they lack confidence in their moves.

Swaps traders are generally expecting Fed policymakers to hold off on any rate cuts at the conclusion of their two-day meeting Wednesday. But investors are keenly focused on comments from Chair Jerome Powell — as well as the Fed’s updated economic projections — that speak to the central bank’s views on economic growth in the months ahead.

El-Erian said that the key thing to watch for in those economic projections is whether their growth forecast falls below 2%.