U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday exposed a “to-do” list during President Donald Trump’s cabinet meeting indicating he was contemplating U.S. purchases of $5 billion to $10 billion worth of Japanese yen, a Reuters photograph taken during the meeting held at Camp David shows.
Taken over Bessent’s shoulder during an on-the-record portion of the meeting, the Camp David notepad bears the underscored words “To Do” followed by “Buy Japanese Yen (JPY) $5-10 bil.”
The notepad shows no other words, and Bessent’s name card on the Camp David conference table is visible and positioned immediately above the notepad. The photograph was taken at 11:33 ET (1533 GMT).
A U.S. Treasury spokesperson did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the contents of the notepad, or whether the Treasury had intervened to help prop up the yen’s value against the dollar on Friday.
Earlier on Friday morning, around two hours before the photo was taken, Reuters reported that the Treasury had notified a number of banks that it may intervene in the yen market on Friday, quoting a source familiar with the situation.
Japanese authorities had stepped in to prop up the yen earlier on Friday in Tokyo. That triggered a substantial strengthening of the Japanese currency during morning trading hours.
There appears to have been another sizeable strengthening of the yen against the dollar during the late afternoon on Friday. Data from LSEG shows the dollar dropped from about 158.9 yen at around 4:14 p.m. (2014 GMT) to about 157.6 yen just before 5 p.m. (2100 GMT) — a drop of about 0.8%.
The U.S. Treasury has not intervened to prop up the yen since 2011, when it joined other G7 countries in a coordinated action after a devastating earthquake and tsunami rocked Japan.