us treasury secretary janet yellen has criticized the supply cut decision made by the organization of the petroleum exporting countries and its allies known as opec calling it “unhelpful and unwise” for the global economy what happened yellen in an interview with the financial times said opecs move to reduce its output by 2 million barrels per day was especially harmful to emerging markets already struggling with high energy prices also read the best oil etfs “it’s uncertain what impact it will end up having but certainly it’s something that to me did not seem appropriate under the circumstances we face” yellen told the financial times “we’re very worried about developing countries and the problems they face why it matters yellens comments come just ahead of annual meetings at the international monetary fund and the world bank where talks will largely center around high inflation and commodity prices the ukraine war and the impact of central bank action “i think we’re going to exchange views on whether our countries are addressing these problems and try to consider whether our collective reaction adds up to something that is sensible” yellen told the ft on dollar strength yellen said the dollars strength was mainly driven by differences in macro fundamentals across nations “in the case of the us it’s safe haven flows responding to geopolitical tensions and different paces of monetary tightening” she said “we continue to think that markets are functioning pretty well and are generally appropriate given the underlying differences across countries and policies and economic situations yellen added price action oil prices have been rising since the opec announcement the united states brent oil fund bno and the vanguard energy index fund etf vde have gained over 9 each in five days read next putin helped by saudi arabia in his despicable ukraine war says schumer as antioil cartel bill gains bipartisan momentum