Bessent meets Japanese counterpart in US a month after yen intervention

A month after the United States and Japan intervened together to halt the yen’s slide, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met Japan’s finance minister in North Carolina.

Bessent held talks with Satsuki Katayama in Asheville during the G20 meeting, which ran through Tuesday, Japanese broadcaster NHK and business newspaper Nikkei reported. He also met Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda.

According to NHK, citing a US Treasury official, Bessent stressed in both meetings the importance of Japan showing markets that it remains committed to fiscal sustainability and higher interest rates.

The two countries intervened in foreign exchange markets on July 31, when the yen traded near 164 to the dollar, its weakest level in almost 40 years. The currency strengthened to about 155 immediately afterward, but had surrendered more than half of that gain by Tuesday, trading near 159 yen per dollar in Tokyo.

The retreat has fueled speculation that Washington and Tokyo could take further joint action, although the account does not say whether any new intervention was agreed.