Is Scott Bessent winning the wrong battle in markets?

Despite the Treasury secretary’s intervention in the yen, US bond yields are climbing higher and higher

    • Analysts have questioned how US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s intervention would work without a meaningful shift towards much higher Japanese interest rates.
    • Analysts have questioned how US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s intervention would work without a meaningful shift towards much higher Japanese interest rates. PHOTO: NYTIMES
    Published Sun, Sep 13, 2026 · 03:21 PM

    THE good news for Scott Bessent, the prickly US Treasury secretary, is that he has established control over one of the world’s most challenging financial markets, seemingly imposing his will against the odds where many before him have failed.

    The bad news is that this is not at home, but in Japan.

    Currency-market specialists are still reeling from the news at the very end of July that the US had, under the direction of Bessent, stepped into Japan’s long-running battle with a worryingly weak yen.