WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve officials were worried about slowing economic growth abroad and the fading effects of President Trump’s tax cuts when they decided in March to pause interest rate increases and cut economic growth forecasts for 2019, according to minutes from the meeting released on Wednesday.

The minutes showed that members of the Federal Open Market Committee judged consumer spending and business investment to be slowing in the first quarter of the year, and that they “generally expected the growth rate of real G.D.P. this year to step down from the pace seen over 2018,” which was 3 percent.

Some Fed officials raised concerns that complications with Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union or the Trump administration’s trade talks with China could further hurt growth this year, and “a few” worried that high levels of debt corporations have taken on during the expansion could exacerbate a downturn in the United States. Officials showed little concern over the possibility that inflation could surge this year.

“A number of participants judged that economic growth in the remaining quarters of 2019 and in the subsequent couple of years would likely be a little lower, on balance, than they had previously forecast,” the minutes said. “Reasons cited for these downward revisions included disappointing news on global growth and less of a boost from fiscal policy than had previously been anticipated.”