Japanese Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato and U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent held discussions on Wednesday regarding currency matters amid ongoing bilateral tariff negotiations. Both sides agreed that the current dollar-yen exchange rate accurately reflects underlying economic fundamentals.
This shared acknowledgment, announced by the U.S. Treasury Department, marks a departure from past criticism by President Donald Trump, who has often cited the yen’s weakness as a contributing factor to the U.S. trade deficit with Japan. The recognition suggests that concerns over the yen’s depreciation are no longer a point of contention in the ongoing tariff talks. The meeting took place on the sidelines of the G7 finance ministers’ gathering in Banff, a resort town in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, and was the second meeting between Kato and Bessent in less than a month. As with their previous meeting on April 24, both parties confirmed that specific foreign exchange rate levels were not discussed. Following the roughly 30-minute meeting, Minister Kato told reporters that he had voiced concerns about the negative impact of uncertainty stemming from the Trump administration’s aggressive tariff measures on the global economy and financial markets. Kato also stated that he conveyed his view that using tariffs to address trade imbalances is inappropriate, and noted that the meeting allowed for deeper discussion on the principles guiding foreign exchange policy.
