Published On 3 Aug 20263 Aug 2026<\/p>\n
Japan and the United States have confirmed a rare, coordinated yen-buying intervention to halt the Japanese currency\u2019s slide to 40-year lows, with Tokyo signalling it is willing to take further action if needed.<\/p>\n
The Japanese Ministry of Finance confirmed the joint intervention after a statement by US President Donald Trump on Sunday announced that Washington was helping to prop up the yen as a sign of friendship and to support the global economy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have a weakening yen, and they wanted a little bit of help. And we\u2019re always there for Japan,\u201d Trump said in response to a reporter\u2019s query about why the US is helping to support the currency.<\/p>\n
The yen leapt after the announcement, leaving traders on high alert for further intervention from authorities. The Japanese currency gained as much as 1.4 percent to hit a nearly three-month high of 155.20 per US dollar, compounding a 3.8 percent surge over the previous two sessions. The yen also advanced broadly against other major currencies, including the euro and sterling.<\/p>\n
The latest bout of aggressive yen-buying heavily pressured the US dollar. In early Asian trading on Monday, the euro climbed to a 1.5-month high of $1.1559, while sterling hovered near a two-week top at $1.3476.<\/p>\n
However, the rapid appreciation of the currency immediately weighed on the equity market. The Nikkei share average tumbled, reversing course from the one-week high it had achieved in the previous session.<\/p>\n
Analysts say the intervention underscores both countries\u2019 resolve to prevent global spillovers from a sell-off in the yen and Japanese government bonds, including by adding pressure on already rising US Treasury yields.<\/p>\n
Japan has been struggling to curb a relentless drop in its currency that has pushed up import prices and stoked broader inflation, hitting household wallets and Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi\u2019s approval ratings.<\/p>\n
In its statement, Japan\u2019s Finance Ministry said Friday\u2019s yen-buying intervention with the US Treasury Department \u201ccountered excessive volatility and disorderly movements in the Japanese yen in recent months\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Japanese Ministry of Finance remains attentive and in close communication with our counterparts at the U.S. Treasury,\u201d it added.\u00a0\u201cWe will not hesitate to conduct further joint intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n
The joint intervention is the first since a 2011 coordinated action to weaken the yen after the devastating earthquake in eastern Japan.<\/p>\n
Tokyo may have sold as much as $58.97bn to buy yen when it intervened in New York markets on Thursday, Bank of Japan data indicated, before Friday\u2019s confirmed joint intervention with Washington.<\/p>\n
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also confirmed Friday\u2019s effort, noting on Sunday that Washington \u201cwill not hesitate to participate in further joint intervention\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe strongly support Japan\u2019s decisive market and monetary steps to correct the substantial undervaluation of the yen,\u201d Bessent said in a separate statement on X, repeating his calls for further interest rate hikes by the Bank of Japan.<\/p>\n
In line with Bessent\u2019s repeated calls for higher Japanese interest rates, the Bank of Japan on Friday offered its most explicit signal to date of an early rate hike, even as it kept monetary policy steady.<\/p>\n
In a sign of broader policy coordination, South Korea also stepped in to buy its won currency on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Japan intervened in April and May, buying yen, but the move triggered only a brief rebound. The Bank of Japan\u2019s June rate hike to a 31-year high of 1 percent also gave the struggling currency little lasting boost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published On 3 Aug 20263 Aug 2026 Japan and the United States have confirmed a rare, coordinated yen-buying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":843693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5806,6109,45,1686,49,48,1376,46,27755,14380,135,1687,2454,44,18262,772,1690,274375],"class_list":["post-843692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-asia","tag-asia-pacific","tag-business","tag-business-and-economy","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-donald-trump","tag-economy","tag-emerging-markets","tag-financial-markets","tag-inflation","tag-international-trade","tag-japan","tag-news","tag-south-korea","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada","tag-whats-your-money-worth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}