Item 1 of 2 A notepad in front of U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent reads "To Do Buy Japanese Yen $5-10 bil" as he participates in a cabinet meeting at Camp David, Maryland, U.S., July 31, 2026. The note, photographed at 11:33 EDT, came after Reuters earlier reported the Treasury had put banks on alert for a possible U.S. intervention in the market for Japan's currency. REUTERS/Daniel Heuer[1/2]A notepad in front of U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent reads "To Do Buy Japanese Yen $5-10 bil" as he participates in a cabinet meeting at Camp David, Maryland, U.S., July 31, 2026. The... Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab Read moreCAMP DAVID, Maryland, July 31 (Reuters) - 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." Sign up here.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.Reporting by Daniel Heuer from Camp David; additional ​reporting by David Lawder in Chicago; editing by Dan Burns and Rosalba O'BrienOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab