Capitol Peak Strategies LLC

🇨🇭 🇸🇬 Thank you to Elevandi for convening this year's Point Zero Forum in Zurich and inviting me to speak on geopolitical and geoeconomic risks with a world-class group of regulators, financial institutions, and civil society moderated by Dea Markova and Gergely Polner from Forefront Advisers: Angel Serna (Agenzia Hub -Zurich Insurance Group) Diego Zuluaga (Goldman Sachs) Karmela Sophia Holtgreve (Deutsche Bundesbank) Kwame Oppong (Bank of Ghana) Laura Deal Lacey (Milken Institute) Michael von Liechtenstein (INDUSTRIE- UND FINANZKONTOR ETS.) Nicolas Veron (Bruegel - Improving economic policy) Santa Purgaile (Latvijas Banka) 📑 Thank you also to Elevandi for publishing my FutureMatters + Capitol Peak Strategies LLC report on geopolitical risk frameworks for financial services https://lnkd.in/eUTAu8-S 🏃♂️ I really appreciated the chance to continue the early morning run (and walk) tradition organized by Ari Redbord from TRM Labs and join as an ally for a breakfast hosted by Amanda Wick and the Association for Women in Cryptocurrency. Beyond the excellent forum content, these and other informal gatherings were a great way to reconnect with friends and meet many new connections. #PZF2024 #Sanctions #AMLCFT #financialregulation #trade #digitalassets

🇨🇭 I'm honored to present new research and policy recommendations at an expert roundtable on geopolitical risks and financial services innovation at the Point Zero Forum in Zurich, Switzerland over 1-3 July 🇪🇺 Our panel will be moderated by the inimitable Dea Markova and Gergely Polner from Forefront Advisers with global perspectives from central banks, the private sector, and civil society, representing: 🇬🇭 Bank of Ghana, Kwame Oppong 🇧🇪 Bruegel - Improving economic policy, Nicolas Veron 🇺🇸 Capitol Peak Strategies LLC, Alex Zerden 🇩🇪 Deutsche Bundesbank, Karmela Sophia Holtgreve 🇬🇧 Goldman Sachs EMEA, Diego Zuluaga 🇱🇻 Latvijas Banka, Santa Purgaile 🇱🇮 INDUSTRIE- UND FINANZKONTOR ETS., HSH Prince Michael of Lichtenstein 🇺🇸 Milken Institute, Laura Deal Lacey Please DM me if you're in Zurich next week! Thank you to the organizers Elevandi and the Federal Department of Finance FDF in cooperation with the Bank for International Settlements – BIS Innovation Hub, Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), and Swiss National Bank: https://lnkd.in/gvbTWXvQ #PZF2024 #geopoliticalrisk #innovation #fintech #digitalassets #banking #sanctions #AMLCFT #elections #derisking #crisisresponse #economicsecurity #economicstatecraft

In case you missed it, Capitol Peak Strategies LLC founder Alex Zerden spoke this week on an expert panel briefing at the U.S. House of Representatives on financial crime, economic, and national security issues.

We're now starting to see the initial contours of a Biden administration economic statecraft doctrine that was unveiled at The Brookings Institution's Economic Studies and Foreign Policy programs event yesterday on economic statecraft and Russia-related economic sanctions. The framework codified many of the ideas put forward by Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics Daleep Singh in 2023-2024 before he returned to the White House but importantly now makes these proposals a part of the Biden administration strategy while adding in "moon shot" ideas on positive economic measures like a U.S. sovereign wealth fund proposal and dramatically expanding sovereign loan guarantees. Brookings also commissioned a series of working papers on economic tools, including on the provocative question of whether we are now at "peak sanctions." Link to the event and papers below 👇 https://lnkd.in/ebAiEmmV

📚 Thank you to the The Lawfare Institute for publishing my book review of "Paper Soldiers" by Bloomberg News' Saleha Mohsin that chronicles four decades of U.S. economic leadership. 💵 Mohsin, a Bloomberg News reporter who conducted hundreds of interviews with experts ranging from former U.S. Department of the Treasury secretaries and Federal Reserve Board officials to economists and foreign diplomats, provides a richly textured account of the modern history of the U.S. dollar. (For disclosure, I provided technical edits to one of the book chapters involving economic sanctions and have been interviewed by the author.) These interviews in particular help bring to life the personalities that shaped the trajectory of the U.S. and global economies. The book covers the final years of the Cold War, the retrospectively halcyon era of 1990s globalization, the responses to the 9/11 attacks, the 2008 financial crisis, debt limit standoffs, and the pandemic, as well as the current era after Russia’s expanded invasion of Ukraine and an increasingly assertive and bellicose China. 💰 Despite its long history, the dollar’s preeminence and advantages face both international and, increasingly, domestic threats. Overseas, partners and adversaries continue to vie for an alternative currency or mechanism to move value at the scale, speed, and predictability of the U.S. dollar. Some international stakeholders lost confidence in the United States because of domestic shocks including the policy and regulatory failures that enabled the 2008 financial crisis and the unpredictability of the Trump administration. To many people overseas, the United States could no longer serve as a guaranteed bedrock of economic order and as a safe harbor for investments. You can read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/gWt-Ru5H

Capitol Peak Strategies LLC founder Alex Zerden will be participating in a webinar on May 23, 2024 at 10:00am EST on economic sanctions evasion and secondary sanctions risks. Please register below:

🇺🇸 Truly humbled and honored to keynote the USASOC Threat Finance Symposium held at the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School this week. 🇦🇫 ☕ I appreciated the chance to share some reflections of my service running the U.S. Department of the Treasury office at U.S. Embassy Kabul, Afghanistan, and focused my remarks on the importance of building trust and deploying what I called "coffee diplomacy" to improve interagency and public/private cooperation and coordination on issues like economic sanctions, anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT), anti-corruption, and counter-narcotics. I also discussed new and emerging technologies as well as how to think about the use of economic sanctions and how it impacts the incentives for alternatives to the U.S. dollar overseas. More importantly, I was able to learn from other current and former government colleagues across other presentations and panels. Two related takeaways stood out (the event was under the Chatham House Rule): First, several speakers identified the challenge posed by "admiring the problem." At this stage, diagnosing vulnerabilities and risks in the broader economic security domain has been done (and often multiple times), so they made several calls for concrete action, particularly by the Defense Department, to improve how the interagency approaches this issue set. Second, a friend and colleague used the phrase "playing pick up basketball" to frame the ad-hoc groups and work streams in the interagency on counter threat finance efforts. More formalization and institutionalization is necessary, especially within civilian bureaucracies. As I recently wrote in War on the Rocks, we need to think about how to both develop and operationalize economic statecraft doctrine, including by dramatically increasing the resources for civilian bureaucracies like Treasury, Commerce, and State while also bringing in the lessons and expertise of the Defense Department in areas like doctrine development, planning, training, joint duty assignments, creating an economic expert reserve capability, Net Assessment and Policy Planning, and better resourcing the Treasury Financial Attaché program to create a Foreign Financial Service. https://lnkd.in/evjSv9hq Thank you to the conference organizers, especially Maddy Goncalves and Jonathan Ray, under General Sara Pollak Dudley's leadership, for convening this important event as well as the opportunity to participate

Since leaving government, I've had the chance to work with a number of experts on economic sanctions recommendations to explore ways to better use this policy tool in a range of contexts, including through targeted designations, identification of more expansive humanitarian licensing frameworks, creative applications of whistleblower incentives, as well as enhanced enforcement capabilities. On this last prong, I'm encouraged to see recent changes signed into law on Wednesday (as part of the emergency supplemental appropriations bill) for sanctions enforcement that extends the statute of limitations for civil actions and criminal enforcement from five to ten years. This technical fix should provide both the Treasury and Justice Departments with more flexibility to investigate potential sanctions violations. In the Treasury context, this update should allow the Office of Foreign Assets Control to rely less on tolling agreements to waive the statute of limitations. The Wall Street Journal has analysis from Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP's Jason Prince and Miller & Chevalier Chartered's Tim O'Toole which rightfully identifies how the private sector is working to respond to the implications of this longer enforcement window and the challenges that it may present to industry.

🗞 Thank you to The Wall Street Journal's Mengqi Sun for including my quote in today's article on US-China anti-money laundering (AML) cooperation as a deliverable from U.S. Department of the Treasury Secretary Yellen's recent visit to China. //// “Anti-money-laundering cooperation is relatively low stakes and noncontroversial relative to other issues overseen by the Treasury Department like economic sanctions and investment review,” said Alex Zerden, a former Treasury official and founder of fintech and risk advisory firm Capitol Peak Strategies. “U.S.-China [anti-money-laundering] cooperation could serve as a building block to establish trust that may allow for engagement on more sensitive topics over time.”

🗞 I want to share my new analysis in War on the Rocks entitled "Operationalizing a Doctrine for U.S. Economic Statecraft" co-authored with Leland Smith. 👩💼 Right now, Washington expects too much from its civilian economic statecraft workforce without sufficiently resourcing it. We propose a permanent architectural change for economic statecraft. The shift in national security priorities should be durable and bipartisan. 🏢 To achieve this goal, policymakers should pursue the following three lines of effort. First, identify who should coordinate across agencies, monitor the threat environment, and inform National Security Council objectives with respect to economic statecraft, with a special focus on the tools available across the Treasury and Commerce departments. Second, allocate the resources necessary to define, refine, and communicate a doctrine covering the circumstances for their use, particularly those involving sanctions, export controls, and investment review, as well as a positive economic incentives toolkit. And third, establish the workforce, processes, and metrics to manage the tools’ integrated use and evaluate their efficacy. Some key recommendations: 🏛 Additional Congressional Funding: Chronic staffing shortages, expanded but unfunded mandates like increased reporting and staffing requirements, and uncompetitive compensation for high-skilled bureaucrats typify the challenges facing the departments and agencies tasked with executing elements of U.S. economic power. 💹 Coordinated Review of Economic Tools: The executive branch should conduct coordinated reviews of specific economic statecraft tools across agencies. Policymakers can look to the 2021 Treasury sanctions policy review as a model for a deliberative process to evaluate specific economic statecraft tools and develop forward-looking guidance. 📜 Develop an Economic Statecraft Doctrine: Executive agencies can begin to build doctrinal texts and training to codify best practices and incorporate each of these considerations within the context of an interagency approach to economic statecraft. 🔎 Civilian Net Assessment and Policy Planning Functions: Congress should provide the Treasury Department resources to build out net assessment and policy planning functions for medium-term planning and to expand upon Commerce Department capabilities for policy planning. 🏦 Align Regulatory Priorities for National Security and Foreign Policy: Federal financial regulators should assess their role as elements of U.S. economic statecraft. While respecting their independence, Congress can consider amending their mandates to account for foreign policy and national security. 🌏 Improved Intelligence Capabilities: Policymakers should expand, and in some places create, the “analytical infrastructure” to measure and assess economic statecraft initiatives.  https://lnkd.in/evjSv9hq