16 Items

Workers wearing personal protective equipment builds splash guards during a mass manufacturing operation to supply New York City government with protection to distribute against COVID-19.

AP Photo/John Minchillo

Analysis & Opinions - Atlantic Council

What COVID-19 Means For the United States’ Economic and Financial Statecraft

| Mar. 30, 2020

It is already evident that coronavirus (COVID-19) has triggered a deeper recession than that of the 2008-2009 Global Financial Crisis. Much like the latter, monetary authorities at the US Federal Reserve have undertaken unprecedented actions to support liquidity in global markets. These steps have included support for domestic debt markets, including a recent expansion in the corporate bond market, as well as swap lines targeting the global dollar shortage. Beyond these moves, the broader policy response during and after the COVID-19 outbreak may drive longer-term changes in the global trading system.  

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Broadcast Appearance - The Brookings Institution

The U.S. Needs Updated Sanctions Programs for an Era of Great Power Competition

| Oct. 14, 2019

In this episode of Dollar & SenseDavid Dollar is joined by Michael Greenwald, a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center who helped design sanctions programs at the U.S. Treasury, to discuss the effectiveness of these tools and why they need to be updated for an era of great power competition.

Dollar bills

AP Photo/Mark Lennihan

Analysis & Opinions - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

The Consequences of Weaponizing the U.S. Dollar

| July 22, 2019

Should INSTEX itself be sanctioned, it would be a powerful signal to the rest of the world. In this scenario, critical dollar-denominated trade not currently facing sanctions, but at potential risk of being sanctioned in the future, could migrate to third party currencies, transferred through sanctions-resistant entities to an INSTEX-like body.

President Donald Trump, left, poses for a photo with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Analysis & Opinions - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

A Financial Statecraft Strategy for the United States to Address the Rise of China

| July 01, 2019

Washington should adjust its coercive economic strategy to reflect a broader use of tools beyond sanctions. Given the degree of political interference in China’s banking system via formal state ownership and the indirect influence of opaque party committees, penalties imposed against the country’s banks are unlikely to produce a meaningful change in behavior.

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks on the prospect of continued negotiations with North Korea at the International Arctic Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, April 9, 2019.

Dmitri Lovetsky (AP)

Analysis & Opinions - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Policing Terror Finance in an Era of Great Competition

| May 07, 2019

America’s sanctions strategy is increasingly burdened by the involvement of systemically important financial institutions and sovereign investors in global financial statecraft. In the post-9/11 world, Washington’s strategy was highly effective in pursuing non-state actors like al-Qaeda or ISIS, as well as small, rogue nations like Iran. Yet in addressing larger sovereigns like the Kremlin, US strategy has struggled to maintain the same effectiveness given the cross-border financial connections linking these entities to Western markets. As an era of great power competition among Washington, Moscow, and Beijing sets in, these foes will crowd out smaller, non-state actors, thus demanding an adequate response from the Treasury.