Mar 22, 2021
Michael Greenwald is a former U.S. Treasury official with expertise in sanctions programs and using USD infrastructure to promote policy objectives. In this episode:
- What the weaponization of the dollar really means
- How sanctions mechanically work
- How Treasury and the State Dept carry out sanctions
- The risk of sanctions wearing blunt as a tool
- The growth of sanctions post 9/11
- How sanctions against Russia represented a sea change in policy
- How the US deputizes SWIFT for sanctions
- How and why Europeans tried to route around US sanctions on Iran
- Is the US led international order fraying?
- China's attempt to build a parallel financial infrastructure to challenge the dollar
- The objectives of the Belt and Road Initiative
- The purpose of the digital yuan
- Can the yuan challenge the primacy of the dollar in the international system?
- How China uses the belt and road initiative to advance the yuan
- How the US should react to China's aggressive move into closer economic relationships with the third world
- What a digital US dollar or CBDC might look like
- How the US can reassert dominance in the international sphere
- Michael's thoughts on stablecoins and Bitcoin
Read Michael's paper, The Future of the US Dollar
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