President Donald Trump said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent independently decided to intervene in the bond market. Treasury’s larger buybacks, conducted under the FAST program, briefly supported long-term bonds but did not resolve persistent supply and demand pressures. By Aug. 21, the 10-year yield had risen to 4.73% and the 30-year yield to 5.28%, while the Dollar Index fell to 98.80. Investors viewed the operations as a limited liquidity and market-functioning measure rather than a change in monetary policy or a solution to more than $40 trillion of U.S. debt, a nearly $2 trillion fiscal deficit, inflation, oil-price gains, heavy Treasury issuance and artificial-intelligence borrowing. Renewed Federal Reserve rate-hike expectations and concern that intervention could weaken the dollar added to volatility.