US Treasury Secretary says joint yen intervention aimed to prevent wider Asian financial instability

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC on Tuesday, August 4, 2026 (13 Mordad 1405), that the joint US-Japan intervention to support the yen was intended to prevent instability from spreading across wider Asian markets, comparing the situation to the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. The operation, which began last week on Friday, July 31 (9 Mordad), marked the first joint yen-buying intervention by the two countries since 1998, coming after the yen slumped to a four-decade low of almost 164 per dollar. Bessent said excess volatility in the South Korean won and concerns that the Chinese renminbi is undervalued were among the reasons a stable yen mattered for the entire region. He said that if the yen kept weakening, Japan, the largest foreign holder of US Treasuries, could be encouraged to sell large quantities of those bonds to raise cash to defend its currency. By Wednesday, August 5 (14 Mordad), the yen had strengthened by around 4 percent from its one-month low.