In “National Economic Security” (Foundation for Defense of Democracies, 14 January 2021), Juan Zarate examines the last four years of the Trump administration’s economic security policies, and provide perspective on priorities for the incoming administrations. His recommendations include:
- Focus sanctions on rogue regimes and facilitators, especially proxies that facilitate sanctions evasion and money laundering.
- Prioritize, sequence, and choreograph economic statecraft to promote the most important U.S. policy goals, and employ it to reinforce core partnerships in the face of broader challenges from China.
- Work closely with U.S. partners to develop financial, economic, and commercial norms and practices internationally—including transparency and accountability in financial flows, restrictions on the use of data, the protection of individual privacy rights, and anti-corrupt corporate behavior.
- Establish information sharing mechanisms with U.S. allies to bolster investment security reviews where China, Russia, and other malign actors are trying to gain influence and access to new technologies, resources, facilities, and capital.
- Bolster structures or create new ones along the lines of the proposed D10, a UK-led initiative that would bring together democratic nations to counter shared challenges in limiting supply chain vulnerabilities.
- In conjunction with U.S. allies, financial institutions, and payment service providers and technologies, develop new payment platforms and capabilities that facilitate international cross-border payments and financial inclusion, ensure transparency, and reinforce the centrality of U.S.-based payment systems.
- Conduct a review of how U.S. adversaries, international market conditions, new technologies, and fiscal and monetary policies are affecting the attractiveness of the U.S. dollar as the leading trade and reserve currency.
Read the full article on Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
