Bessent’s ‘to do’ list: buy $5-10 billion worth of Japanese yen, photo shows

During a cabinet meeting at Camp David, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent inadvertently displayed a list suggesting the US might purchase $5 billion to $10 billion worth of Japanese yen. The notepad, photographed by Reuters, featured the phrases "To Do" and "Buy Japanese Yen (JPY) $5-10 bil" before Bessent's name card on the Camp David table.

The photograph, taken at 11:33am local time, showed the list clearly visible even after Bessent spoke 30 minutes later in support of the president. No immediate comment was provided by a treasury spokesperson regarding the notepad's contents or whether the treasury had intervened to support the yen's value against the dollar on that day.

Later, the Financial Times reported that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York had sold euros to acquire yen on behalf of the US treasury department. The yen's depreciation, reaching its lowest level since 1986 last week, was attributed to factors like rising oil prices, as per Bloomberg News. Earlier in the day, the treasury department reportedly informed several banks about its possible intervention in the yen market that day, according to an unnamed source.

Japanese authorities had preemptively stepped in to bolster the yen during early trading, causing a significant strengthening of the Japanese currency. The dollar subsequently fell from approximately 158.9 yen at 4:14 pm ET to around 157.6 yen just before 5 pm, marking a decline of about 0.8%. Notably, the US treasury had not intervened to support the yen since 2011, when it joined other G7 countries in a coordinated action following a devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan.