Bessent says US has strong dollar policy, 'absolutely not' intervening to support yen

WASHINGTON, Jan 28 (Reuters) - The U.S. has a beardown dollar argumentation and that means mounting the close fundamentals, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said connected Wednesday, portion ​denying that Washington was intervening successful currency markets to enactment the Japanese yen.

Asked connected ‌CNBC if the U.S. was intervening to fortify the yen, Bessent said, "Absolutely not."

Pressed if that was thing the U.S. ‌planned to do, Bessent said, "We don't remark different than to accidental we person a beardown dollar policy."

Bessent's remarks boosted the dollar's worth against a handbasket of currencies connected Wednesday, sending it up from a four-year debased touched successful the anterior session.

The dollar index, which measures the U.S. currency's spot ⁠against a handbasket of peers, roseate ‌0.5% to 96.391. The scale sank arsenic debased arsenic 95.86 connected Tuesday, its weakest since February 2022, aft U.S. President Donald Trump brushed disconnected this ‍month's slide, emboldening dollar bears.

The dollar scale is down astir 2% for the year, aft falling 9.4% past year.

Trump said connected Tuesday the worth of the dollar was "great", erstwhile asked if helium thought it had ​declined excessively much. Traders took this arsenic a awesome to intensify dollar selling, up of ‌a Federal Reserve argumentation determination aboriginal connected Wednesday.

The dollar has been nether unit owed to uncertainty astir U.S. involvement rates and tariffs, threats to the independency of the Federal Reserve and rising fiscal deficits.

Gold, a safe-haven plus that mostly rises erstwhile the dollar weakens and does not output interest, climbed connected Wednesday, surpassing $5,300 per ounce for the archetypal time.

Bessent expressed assurance that Trump's ⁠tax and deregulation policies were making the U.S. charismatic ​for investors, bringing successful trillions of dollars.

"Over clip the prices ​on the surface tin fluctuate implicit six months, a year," Bessent said. "If we person dependable policies the wealth volition travel in, and we are bringing down ‍our commercialized deficits truthful ⁠they, automatically that should pb to much dollar spot implicit time."

Bessent repeated his forecast that the U.S. system would execute good this year, but said helium was not disquieted ⁠about that maturation triggering inflation.

Productivity and wage maturation bash not needfully pb to higher inflation, helium said, adding that ‌declining rents could pb to drops successful measured ostentation successful time.

(Reporting by Andrea ‌Shalal and Susan Heavey; Editing by David Gregorio)