The most important American in the world right now might not be Donald Trump. It could be Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, who is exercising America’s financial muscle in highly interesting ways across the world.
This week the US joined the Japanese government in an intervention to prop up the yen – the first time America and its ally have done so since 1998, at the height of the Asian financial crisis.
Financial analysts have been critical of the move, especially Bessent’s promise to do “whatever it takes” to support Japan’s currency and his willingness to lift the $60 billion cap on the emergency facility. The fear is that, at a time when Federal Reserve chairman Kevin Warsh remains eager to tighten the balance sheet, Bessent is taking on more debt. But the imperative for America seems to be to create a new mechanism for backing the yen that avoids the vulnerabilities exposed by “carry trade” speculations, which in 2024 caused a sharp dip in Japanese and US stocks.
Bessent’s talk of a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz has lifted markets – arguably far more than Trump’s remarks on social media
Yet, at a higher level, the move also reveals the Trump administration’s eagerness to back political partners through the markets to counter the influence of China, its greatest geostrategic adversary.
