UPDATED: HE SAID HE WOULD NOT PRESSURE THE BANK OF JAPAN — THE SAME DAY HE ASKED ITS GOVERNOR FOR RATE HIKES — THEN TOLD TELEVISION HE HAD INFORMATION THE MARKET DIDN’T
On Sunday, Scott Bessent told Reuters the yen’s fall was “pretty well contained” and said he would not pressure the Bank of Japan on rates. On Sunday, according to a senior Treasury official who spoke to NHK, he sat down with Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda at the G20 in Asheville and called for further rate hikes — and for Japan to show more clearly how it plans to get its own budget under control. On Monday he met Japan’s finance minister, Satsuki Katayama. Then he went on CNBC and said: “I have information that the market doesn’t have, and it’s my belief that the Japanese government and that the BOJ will do the things that will lead to a stronger yen.” The yen rose on it. Read that sentence again, because it is true. He did have information the market did not have. He was the one who said it, in a room, the day before. Hold the meetings loosely: the account comes from his own department, and Reuters could not confirm they happened. But the public line and the private ask cannot both be the whole story. And the man telling Japan to fix its budget speaks for a government forty trillion dollars in debt, borrowing for thirty years at a price it last paid in 2007.
UPDATE, 8:05 PM ET. The market did what he said it would. On Tuesday Japan's 10-year bond yield touched 3 percent, a level it has not traded at since 1996. The yen sits near 160 to the dollar, the line traders treat as the point Tokyo steps in to defend it. The BOJ meets September 17 and 18, one day after the Fed. None of this is abstract for Bitcoin. A weak yen is cheap money that funds trades in everything, Bitcoin included, and the last time that trade unwound, in August 2024, it took Bitcoin down with it in hours. Two of the largest central banks on earth now move one day apart in September, the Fed under public pressure to cut, the BOJ about to hike into a three-decade high. He told you which way he wanted Japan to jump before the market had to guess. You don't get that call. You get to hold the one asset neither of them can print.
UPDATE, 8:05 PM ET. The market did what he said it would. On Tuesday Japan's 10-year bond yield touched 3 percent, a level it has not traded at since 1996. The yen sits near 160 to the dollar, the line traders treat as the point Tokyo steps in to defend it. The BOJ meets September 17 and 18, one day after the Fed. None of this is abstract for Bitcoin. A weak yen is cheap money that funds trades in everything, Bitcoin included, and the last time that trade unwound, in August 2024, it took Bitcoin down with it in hours. Two of the largest central banks on earth now move one day apart in September, the Fed under public pressure to cut, the BOJ about to hike into a three-decade high. He told you which way he wanted Japan to jump before the market had to guess. You don't get that call. You get to hold the one asset neither of them can print.
UPDATED · TUE SEP 1 · 12:15 AM ET. Our first headline said Bessent would meet the Bank of Japan’s governor the next day, following Reuters, which reported he planned to meet Ueda on the G20 sidelines. NHK now reports he had already met Ueda on Sunday — before the quote, not after. The order matters, so the headline is corrected and the original is left here. Added: the Sunday “pretty well contained” remarks and the pledge not to pressure the BOJ, the Katayama meeting, and the fiscal-sustainability request. The Bank of Japan meets September 17 and 18.
Reuters via Yahoo Finance · Mon Aug 31 · 12:10 PM ET · + SCMP (LATER) Tue Sep 1 · + COINDESK (LATER) Tue Sep 1 · + NHK via Treasury official · also reported by The Japan Times (paywalled, not linked) · + EURONEWS (LATER) Tue Sep 1 · + 93.3 THE DRIVE (LATER) Tue Sep 1