Minutes of the Federal Reserve meeting show that more policymakers are open to raising interest rates.

Last month, concerns about a potential war with Iran driving up inflation intensified among Federal Reserve officials, leading to more officials becoming open to the possibility of raising interest rates. This indicates that incoming chairperson Powell will inherit an increasingly hawkish team of central bank officials. Minutes from the meeting held on April 28-29, released on Wednesday, showed that most Federal Reserve policymakers believed that if inflation remains above the central bank's 2% target, "taking some policy tightening measures might become appropriate." The minutes stated: "In response to this possibility, many participants indicated that they would prefer to delete from the post-meeting statement those hints suggesting that the Committee's future rate decisions may be biased toward easing." In the Federal Reserve's careful language, while the word "many" does not meet the standard of "most", it suggests that at least three Fed chairpersons who voted against keeping the statement unchanged received support from an equal number of non-voting members. Changing the statement could be seen as a constraint on the new Federal Reserve chairperson, as the chairperson had expressed support for cutting interest rates at least before the outbreak of a war with Iran.