US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the Federal Reserve should have an open mind and not hike rates because of an “energy supply shock” tied to the Iran war, Reuters reports.

“I think the Fed should understand that this is an energy supply shock,” while the underlying US economy is very strong, Bessent said in an interview on CNBC.

“So I think that to hike too much into an energy supply shock when it’s coming down, these are very noisy numbers,” he explains. “You know, the Fed’s supposed to look into the future, not look in the rearview mirror.”

The US central bank left its policy rate on hold last month, with Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh saying policymakers would be watching for data to help decide whether more monetary policy tightening would be needed.

“I’m not going to tell the Fed what to do. I am going to say they should have an open mind,” Bessent says, noting that the Fed did three rate cuts over the same period last year. “And now to reverse just based on an energy supply shock, a reversal in a dramatic way isn’t something that I would do if I were on the Fed. But I’m not on the Fed.”