A photograph taken by Reuters during a U.S. cabinet meeting at Camp David, Maryland, on Friday, July 31, shows a notepad in front of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent with a handwritten 'to-do' list that reads: 'Buy Japanese Yen (JPY) $5-10 bil.' The list, underscored and bearing no other words, was visible during an on-the-record portion of the meeting open to journalists, with Bessent's name card positioned above it.
The meeting was President Donald Trump's cabinet meeting, and Bessent attended. The photograph, taken over Bessent's shoulder at 11:33 a.m. local time (1533 GMT), suggests the U.S. Treasury contemplated purchasing between $5 billion and $10 billion worth of Japanese yen, according to the list.
The amount of Japanese yen the notepad indicates the U.S. contemplated buying.
A U.S. Treasury spokesperson did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment on the notepad's contents or whether the Treasury had intervened to help prop up the yen on Friday. However, Reuters reported, citing a source familiar with the situation, that the Treasury had notified several banks about a possible intervention in the yen market about two hours before the photograph was taken.
Japanese authorities had already stepped in to prop up the yen earlier on Friday in Tokyo, triggering a substantial strengthening during morning trading. Another sizeable strengthening occurred later in the afternoon, with LSEG data showing the dollar dropping from about 158.9 yen at around 4:14 p.m. ET to about 157.6 yen just before 5 p.m. ET, a decrease of about 0.8 percent.
The U.S. Treasury has not intervened to prop up the yen since 2011, when it joined other G7 countries in coordinated action to support the currency after a devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan.