WASHINGTON (Kyodo) — The U.S. government sold euros and bought 79.4 billion yen ($497 million) in a coordinated currency market intervention with Japanese authorities on July 31 to prop up a sagging yen, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said in a quarterly report released Thursday.
Acting as fiscal agent for the U.S. Treasury Department, the New York Fed made the purchase in the spot foreign exchange market against the sale of euros to “counter what the U.S. Treasury viewed as disorderly moves in the Japanese yen,” according to the report.
The coordinated intervention came after the yen fell in late July to a nearly 40-year low near 164 against the U.S. dollar. It marked the first joint Japan-U.S. yen-buying operation since June 1998, at the height of the Asian financial crisis.
The New York Fed said in its report, which covers the July to September period, that it sold euros from the Exchange Stabilization Fund. The move does not require congressional approval.
On coordinating with Japanese authorities to support the yen, U.S. President Donald Trump said in early August that Japan needed help. “They have a weakening yen, and they wanted a little bit of help,” Trump told reporters.
He also cited “financial benefit” for the United States in joining Tokyo’s effort.
The series of currency interventions Japan undertook between July and August, including in coordination with the United States, as well as U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s call for sound monetary policy to combat a weak yen helped it strengthen to the 152 level against the dollar in early September.
The yen has since sagged to around the 160 line.
