Business 6 August 2026

The US and Japan bought yen together for the first time since 1998

Tokyo and Washington confirmed a coordinated currency intervention to halt the yen's slide after it hit 40-year lows against the dollar. The Bank of Japan spent around ¥5.33 trillion in a single session.

Tokyo and Washington confirmed this week that they moved together in the currency markets to prop up the yen. It is the first joint yen-buying operation by the two countries since 1998, and the scale leaves little doubt about how uncomfortable both sides had become.

Bank of Japan figures show roughly ¥5.33 trillion spent in Friday’s session, following a record intervention of about ¥8.45 trillion the day before. Across three sessions the yen gained as much as 5%.

How it got this far

The dollar was trading above 163 yen before the operation, touching 40-year highs. A currency that weak flatters Japanese exporters, but it makes everything Japan imports more expensive — energy, food, raw materials — and turns into a domestic political problem fast. After the official announcement the dollar fell about 1%, to 156.34 yen.

What makes this intervention unusual is not that Japan acted. It is that the United States acted with it. Washington rarely intervenes in currency markets, and here the interest is self-serving: a weak yen widens the American trade deficit.

What is left hanging

Tokyo made clear it will not hesitate to run another coordinated operation if needed, which doubles as a warning to anyone minded to test the currency again. For European markets the immediate effect shows up in flows and volatility — the same backdrop we have been tracking across gold, oil and interest rates. Official operation data is published by the Japanese finance ministry’s official register of intervention operations.

By Beatriz Mota

Image: Suicasmo / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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