US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has admitted she was “wrong” last year when she suggested that US inflation would not be a long-term problem. “I was wrong about the trajectory of inflation,” Yellen told CNN.

“There have been unforeseen and significant economic shocks that have triggered higher energy and food prices and supply disruptions that have negatively impacted our economy, and I didn’t fully realize it at the time,” she said.

Yellen had said last year, before the situation in Ukraine and new variants of the coronavirus, that inflation posed a “small risk,” noting that she didn’t expect it to be a “problem.”

Now, she said US President Joe Biden’s administration is focused on taking steps to curb rising inflation, and that includes putting confidence in the US Federal Reserve (Fed). “The Fed is taking measures that need to be taken. They have to decide what to do,” she said.

Biden met yesterday with Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and Yellen to discuss the outlook for the U.S. and global economies. Following the meeting, Biden said he “does not intend to interfere with the extremely important work” of the Fed.