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U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent co-ordinated with the Bank of Japan last week to stem the yen’s decline, a highly unusual move that could affect us all, John Rapley writes.Kylie Cooper/Reuters
John Rapley is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail. He is an author and academic whose books include Why Empires Fall and Twilight of the Money Gods.
In a U.S. administration staffed with loyalist journeymen, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has stood out for mastery of his brief. A consummate Wall Streeter, he has managed the markets with aplomb, ensuring their steady rise despite serving a President who by now might have, given his fickleness and outlandish experimentation, brought everything crashing down.
That doesn’t mean Mr. Bessent is above doing Trumpian things, insofar as they break with traditional norms. Last week, for instance, he…