US vows to support Japan after yen intervention, says Bessent

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent just confirmed something currency markets haven’t seen in over a decade: a coordinated foreign exchange intervention between the US and Japan to prop up the yen. The move came after the Japanese currency slid to its weakest level against the dollar in 40 years, and it worked. The yen snapped back roughly 4%, landing at approximately 157.5 against the dollar. The last time Washington and Tokyo teamed up like this was 2011, after an earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan. This time, the crisis is purely financial, but the response carries the same weight. What actually happened The intervention, confirmed publicly around August 3, involved the US purchasing yen on the open market. Part of the buying was funded through euro sales, a tactical decision that effectively spread the pressure across multiple currency pairs rather than concentrating it on the dollar-yen exchange rate alone. Japan’s Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan coordinated the effort on their end, making this a genuinely bilateral operation rather than the typical solo Japanese interventions that markets have grown accustomed to over the years. Bessent didn’t leave any ambigui...