Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin said his support for last week's interest-rate increase reflected the conclusion that recent drivers of price pressures might be longer-lasting than previously anticipated.

"What happened over the summer is, I think it just got a lot clearer to me and maybe to others that this gas-price thing was going to endure for a while," he said during a moderated conversation at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., this morning. New tariffs on Canada likewise suggested price pressures might persist from trade tensions, which Fed officials had been more willing to look past. And AI investments had begun to pinch supply chains in ways that drive up consumer prices, he said.

"So if inflation's not going to come down relatively quickly, then you have to look in the mirror and say, 'Inflation looks like it's been here for a while, so maybe we should do something about it.' I think that's what happened," he said.