Japanese Finance Minister Katayama says exchanged views on FX trends with US Treasury Secretary Bessent on Friday and agreed to bolster cooperation, adds we believe the undervalued yen, in general, is problematic

• Will continue close communications with US Treasury to ensure orderly Forex markets.

Bilateral commentary of this kind sits at the top of the verbal escalation ladder that has historically preceded coordinated or unilateral action: officials first flag disorderly moves, then describe the currency's level itself as problematic, then act. Calling the yen undervalued is a step beyond the usual one-sided language about excessive volatility, since it frames the issue as level rather than speed, and episodes framed that way have tended to give the ministry more latitude to intervene on either side of the move. The US Treasury element matters more than the domestic rhetoric: past Japanese intervention has carried most weight when Washington has at least tacitly endorsed it, and explicit mention of exchanged views and closer cooperation is the kind of language that markets have historically read as clearing political space for action rather than as routine diplomacy. The transmission channel is the USD/JPY spot level and skew in short-dated risk reversals, where intervention premium typically shows first. Worth watching next is whether the pace of yen weakness accelerates toward prior intervention zones, whether the rhetoric migrates from the finance ministry to joint statements, and whether any actual operation is confirmed as coordinated, which historically has marked the difference between a lasting turn and a fade.