Japan and US Pledge Continued Coordination to Stabilize Yen
Japan and the US have agreed to continue coordinating efforts to stabilize the yen's exchange rate. The agreement comes after the yen's recent slide near 160 per dollar, which has drawn attention from markets about the likelihood of another joint action to prop up the currency.
Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama said that the two countries reiterated and confirmed their stance on standing ready to act if markets were making disorderly moves. She declined to comment when asked whether the yen's recent slide was orderly, saying it was hard to judge what factors were driving exchange-rate moves.
Bilateral talks between Katayama and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent took place on the sidelines of the Group of 20 finance leaders' gathering in Asheville, North Carolina. Bessent had previously stated that recent yen moves were 'pretty well contained', suggesting that the currency's renewed slide was not seen as the kind of disorderly moves that triggered last month's joint intervention.
The coordinated intervention a month ago pushed the yen off a 40-year low near 164 per dollar, but it has failed to provide a sustained floor for the currency. The yen briefly slipped below the 160-per-dollar level on Friday, after comments from Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh revived expectations of a near-term US rate hike.