10 Items

Stock prices are displayed at the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2019.

AP Photo/Mark Lennihan

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

The Geoeconomic Superstorm Threatening the Globe’s Three Financial Hubs

| Sep. 30, 2019

While New York, London, and Hong Kong will continue to play outsized roles in international business, their current privileged status may be more precarious than it seems.

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.

Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks during a news conference

AP Photo/Jason Lee

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

The Silk Road and the Gulf: A New Frontier for the RMB

| Mar. 14, 2019

Many view the Belt and Road Initiative as the most geoeconomically significant infrastructure project since the Marshall Plan. Promising alternative trade routes, abundant capital flows, and advanced infrastructure to the developing world, the program has scaled significantly since its inception in 2013. Standing at the crossroads of Eurasia, the Gulf States and broader Middle East are an important link between the economies of East Asia and Western Europe.

Saudi Arabia Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping

AP Photo/Rolex Dela Pena

Analysis & Opinions - The Hill

In the Gulf, China Plays to Win but US has Upper Hand

| Mar. 12, 2019

A surge of U.S. oil production has reduced Washington’s need for imports, leaving China as the world’s largest purchaser of crude in global markets. Meanwhile, Beijing has become the largest trading partner of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Oman, as well as Iraq, Iran, Egypt and Lebanon. Now, with synergy between Xi Jinping’s One Belt, One Road and Vision 2030, the stars seem aligned for a Saudi-Sino alliance to displace American influence in the Gulf.

The European Central Bank by the river Main in Frankfurt, Germany.

AP Photo/Michael Probst

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

Too Big to Evade: The Costs of Europe Sticking with Iran

| Feb. 20, 2019

In spite of initial hopefulness, the Europeans will eventually face a reckoning with the facts: Washington’s financial leverage over Brussels has, arguably, never been greater since the establishment of the euro in 1999. The power of the U.S. Dollar and weaponization of the U.S. financial system cannot be challenged successfully by Europe at this moment.

 

A photograph of the U.S. dollar among international bank notes.

Creative Commons

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

The Future of the U.S. Dollar in a Post Iran Deal World

| Oct. 26, 2018

The European Union’s announcement in September 2018 that it would begin to create a special payments channel with Iran in response to the US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) once again raises the question of the role of the U.S. Dollar (USD) in the international economic order.  Under the surface of discussions of alternative payment mechanisms is the legitimate question of the negative impacts of American coercive economic statecraft on the USD status as the leading global reserve currency.

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News - Atlantic Council

Bridging the Gulf in the GCC

| May 11, 2018

Belfer Center Visiting Fellow Michael Greenwald, senior advisor to Atlantic Council President and Chief Executive Officer Fred Kempe, was interviewed by Rachel Brandenburg, director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council, about the implications of the ongoing feud for the Gulf states and US interests. Greenwald is a former US Treasury attaché to Qatar and Kuwait.