The 1985 agreement aimed at depreciating the U.S. dollar against the yen and Deutsche Mark was the Plaza Accord.
The agreement was reached on September 22, 1985, at New York City’s Plaza Hotel. Finance ministers and central-bank governors from the United States, Japan, West Germany, France, and the United Kingdom agreed that the dollar had become too strong and that coordinated intervention should encourage the other currencies to appreciate.
The dollar had risen sharply earlier in the decade, hurting American manufacturers and contributing to a large U.S. trade deficit. The accord did not impose a single exchange rate; instead, participating governments signaled cooperation and intervened in currency markets. The dollar subsequently declined substantially against the yen and Deutsche Mark.
A common mix-up is the Louvre Accord, signed in 1987. It sought to stabilize exchange rates and halt the dollar’s continuing fall after the Plaza Accord. The Basel Accords, by contrast, concern international banking regulation, not coordinated currency intervention.