Three Fed officials supported the hike and internal hawk pressure rose. Wen

On 31 July, three Federal Reserve policymakers stated that the negative vote in support of the interest rate hike this week was the result of stubborn inflationary pressures, which showed that pressure for internal action was rising for Federal Reserve Chairman Walsh. In a statement released on Friday morning, Hamak and Kashkali expressed their concern that, despite the fact that the current round of price increases may have originated from short-term factors such as President Tripp ' s tariff policy and Iran ' s war, the inflation situation now merits action by the Fed. Logan joined the group, saying that even if inflation cooled, if the Fed did not raise interest rates, inflation was unlikely to fall completely to the Fed's target level of 2 per cent; in the absence of any policy constraints, inflation could continue to be above the target level until an unexpected shock occurred. Kashkali indicated that, if inflation persisted, he might support a series of interest-rate measures, not just a single one, to prevent further inflation consolidation. He said that “a series of small policy adjustments may be better than waiting for the situation to develop and will eventually have to take greater action”. Hamark indicated that price increases could continue to accelerate if the Fed did not tighten its policy. She said: “Inflation has persisted at above 2 per cent for more than five years, and I am not confident that it will return to our target level”. Kim Xian