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Far from suggesting financial Armageddon, the US treasury secretary’s futile efforts to keep a lid on Treasury yields suggest that once again, the dollar is America’s currency but everyone else’s problem.
United States Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent takes questions from reporters on Aug. 24, 2026, during a press conference in Washington, DC. (AFP/Kent Nishimura)
United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has a packed agenda. Alongside trying to crash Iran’s economy, he is concerned about the cost of servicing federal debt, which surpassed 100 percent of gross domestic product earlier this year. Interest payments on America’s debt have shot up to more than US$1 trillion this year, exceeding annual defense spending.To keep a lid on Treasury yields, Bessent, who spent most of his career in capital markets, notably at Soros Fund Management where he helped “break” the British pound in September 1992, is now seeking to move market sentiment from the other side of the fence.
First came a joint intervention by the US and Japan to prop up a weak yen. To raise the dollars required on its own, Japan would have had to sell US Treasuries. Japan is the largest holder of US debt and has long been a reliable buyer, putting around 25 cents of every surplus dollar into Treasuries for the past two decades. A forced sale would have been a very public break from precedent.
