U.S.-Japan Pact Pushes Up Dollar

The dollar ended mostly higher Friday, helped by a U.S.-Japanese deregulation monitoring pact and friendly gestures toward Japan from senior American officials at the Group of Seven summit.

Currency traders interpreted the eased tension as evidence that the United States won’t pressure Japan to raise the yen’s value in order to narrow the widening Japanese trade surplus. Data released earlier in the week showed the surplus rose in April and May due to yen weakness.

Despite the dollar’s strength, it fell to a five-month low against the surging British pound, and the U.S. currency’s advances in other dealings were limited due to resilient uncertainty about the G-7 summit’s outcome on Sunday.