(Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Beth Hammack said she wants to see inflation lowered further before she'd support a cut in interest rates.
"We're not there yet on the inflation side of the mandate," Hammack said Monday in an interview with Fox Business News. "I think it's important that we wait and see how all the new policies that have been put forward are going to impact inflation."
The Fed is widely expected to hold interest rates steady again when it meets July 29-30 in Washington. Two policymakers have suggested they might support a cut at that meeting, but most others have signaled they want more time to assess the impact of tariffs on inflation.
Hammack said she has heard from businesses that are pausing or scaling back investment plans until they know more about how they could be affected by tariffs. Still, she said the economy was strong and officials could afford to be patient.
The Cleveland Fed chief declined to specify how many rate cuts she expects to see this year but added that she thinks the Fed's benchmark rate is close to the neutral level at which it is neither boosting nor slowing growth.
"I see an economy that's resilient," said Hammack. "I see one that's working really well, and I don't see a need to really reduce unless we see material weakening on the labor side."
(Updates with additional Hammack comments starting in fourth paragraph.)
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