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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