Regarding reports that the United States intervened in the foreign exchange market with Japan to defend the yen, U.S. President Donald Trump said it was "a signal of friendship."
According to Bloomberg and others on the 2nd (local time), Trump, speaking aboard Air Force One as he returned to Washington, D.C., from Bedminster, New Jersey, when asked why the United States intervened in the foreign exchange market to defend the yen, said, "Japan's yen was weakening and needed a little help," adding, "We are always there for Japan. It is a signal of friendship."
As the yen's value has fallen sharply recently, Japanese authorities stepped in to buy yen and sell dollars in the foreign exchange market. The U.S. Treasury, through the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, also conducted a transaction selling euros and buying yen.
The U.S. Treasury has not officially confirmed whether it intervened in the foreign exchange market, but on the 31st of last month, a memo held by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, photographed at a federal Cabinet meeting at Camp David in Maryland, showed "purchase of Japanese yen (JPY) $500 million–$1 billion" listed as a "To Do" item.
Meanwhile, Reuters, citing government officials in Japan, reported that Japan's Finance Minister Katayama Satsuki is expected to announce on the 3rd that the U.S. and Japanese governments jointly intervened in the foreign exchange market to stop the yen's value from falling to its lowest level in 40 years.
Reuters said, "This announcement follows the joint move by Japanese and U.S. authorities to buy yen," adding, "It is the first joint intervention by the two countries in the foreign exchange market since 2011 and a step to pull up the yen, which has fallen to its lowest level since 1986."