U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Thursday she believes the U.S. economy does not need further drastic monetary policy tightening to prevent inflation from being ingrained and was on track to achieve a "soft landing" with strong employment.

Yellen told reporters after a speech at a lithium processing plant in North Carolina that in the past, the Federal Reserve sometimes had to tighten monetary policy so much that it flipped the economy into recessions.