On July 31 2026, a camera caught a notebook on the seat of US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as he attended a cabinet meeting chaired by President Trump at Camp David. Under a "to-do" heading, it read: buy yen, $500mn to $1bn. That the private notes of one country's treasury secretary should record an order to buy another country's currency is an absurd image — absurd because, before this, Japan had all but exhausted every tool in the textbook without ever managing to truly stabilise the yen.
