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The future of American financial and economic statecraft

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William and Carol Stevenson Conference

The future of American financial and economic statecraft

Friday, February 28, 2025
9:30AM - 2:30PM (EST)
Event Details

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The Miller Center’s 2025 William and Carol Stevenson Conference examines how the Trump administration might use the levers of economic power.

The post-Cold War bipartisan consensus on the U.S. role in the world economy has broken down. Policymakers from both parties increasingly eschew the goals of global integration and trade liberalization in favor of greater protectionism. At the same time, economic and financial tools—from sanctions and export controls to tariffs and industrial policy—have become ever more central to policymakers’ efforts to advance U.S. security and competitiveness in a sharply contested international environment. This combination presents major risks and opportunities for the United States, as well as difficult policy tradeoffs. How the next administration navigates these tradeoffs will have long-term implications for U.S. national security, the global economy, and the American people.

What is the future of American economic and financial statecraft? How has the exercise of U.S. economic and financial power changed over the past 25 years and what is its trajectory? How should the Trump administration use the levers of economic and financial power to advance U.S. global interests? What are the key risks? And what elements might form the foundation for a new consensus?

Panels feature scholars and practitioners with experience in government, the private sector, and academia, allowing for wide-ranging dialogue on complex issues. 

The William and Carol Stevenson Conference is a biennial conference that focuses on issues of national and international importance.

The Miller Center is deeply grateful to the Stevenson family for its support of our work.

Audience members are encouraged to participate in these open, seminar-style discussions.

 

9:30–9:35 a.m. EST

Opening remarks

William Antholis, director and CEO of the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, welcomes participants to the Miller Center’s 2025 William and Carol Stevenson Conference.

 

9:35–10:45 a.m. EST

Keynote address

Why has the bipartisan consensus on the U.S. role in the world economy broken down? What are the main questions of economic and financial statecraft that the United States faces today? What strategies should U.S. policymakers adopt to maintain and advance U.S. economic and financial leadership? What are the key risks—and how can or should these be avoided or managed?

Ambassador Michael Froman, William Antholis (moderator)

 

10:45–11:00 a.m. EST

Break

11:00 a.m.–12:15 p.m. EST

 

Panel 1: Challenges to U.S. economic and financial statecraft in historical perspective  

This roundtable explores the history of U.S. economic and financial statecraft and evaluate the key challenges U.S. policymakers face today. The goal is to understand why these challenges are emerging, how they will affect American strategic interests over the next 5 to 10 years, and what signposts to watch for. The multifaceted discussion focuses on (1) evaluating U.S. strategic economic and financial assets, (2) preserving U.S. competitiveness vis-à-vis major rivals, especially China, (3) integrating economic and financial tools with traditional national security policymaking, and (4) managing emerging risks, including threats to the dollar’s role as the global reserve currency, decoupling, reduced global growth/innovation, and friction with U.S. allies and partners.

Yiorgos Allayannis, Emily Blanchard, Henry Farrell, Peter Harrell, Kristin Silverberg, Philip Zelikow, Scott Miller (moderator)

 

12:15–1:15 p.m. EST

Break

 

1:15–2:30 p.m. EST

Policy priorities for the new administration 

This panel builds on the earlier discussion to surface recommendations for the new Trump administration. The panel takes a strategic perspective, evaluating policy risks, opportunities, and tradeoffs for American policy makers and developing specific proposals to advance U.S. competitiveness and security over the long term. Key topics may include (1) trade and tariff policies, (2) regulation of cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, (3) allies and partners, including efforts to create trusted technology ecosystems, (4) steps to address the use or overuse of sanctions, (5) an evaluation of the effect of rising deficit and debt levels on the U.S. dollar and U.S. treasury yields, and (6) promotion or reform of institutions like the DFC and ExIm.

Yiorgos Allayannis, Emily Blanchard, Henry Farrell, Peter Harrell, Kristin Silverberg, Philip Zelikow, Alexander Bick (moderator)


When
Friday, February 28, 2025
9:30AM - 2:30PM (EST)
Where
The Miller Center
2201 Old Ivy Rd
Charlottesville, VA
&
ONLINE
Speakers
Yiorgos Allayannis headshot

Yiorgos Allayannis

Yiorgos Allayannis is the Robert F. Bruner Distinguished Professor of Business Administration and former associate dean of Darden's Global Executive MBA (GEMBA) program. He is an expert in corporate finance, risk management, financial institutions and international finance. His work has examined the impact of derivatives on risk and firm value, corporate governance and its influence in a firm's use of derivatives for hedging, as well as firms' financial and operational hedging strategies. Other work has examined volatility and its implications for firm value distinguishing between earnings and cash flow volatility. His research has been published in leading finance journals, such as the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics and the Review of Financial Studies.

Emily Blanchard headshot

Emily Blanchard

Emily Blanchard is an associate professor of business administration at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth University and also the Daniel R. Revers T'89 Faculty Fellow. She is a research fellow with the Center for Economic Policy Research and a member of the CES-Ifo research network. She served as chief economist of the U.S. Department of State from January 2022 to November 2023. Beyond her academic research on international economics and public policy, she partners with leading national and international institutions to bring research to practice. She is a former chair and a founding board member for the national nonpartisan, nonprofit (501(c)(3)) National Economic Education Delegation. She graduated with honors in economics from Wellesley College and earned MSc. and Ph.D. degrees in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was previously an assistant professor of economics at the University of Virginia.

Henry Farrell headshot

Henry Farrell

Henry Farrell is Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute Professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the 2019 winner of the Friedrich Schiedel Prize for Politics and Technology. He researches democracy, AI, and global economic coercion. His books include The Political Economy of Trust: Interests, Institutions and Inter-Firm Cooperation; Of Privacy and Power: The Transatlantic Fight over Freedom and Security (with Abraham Newman); and Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy (with Abraham Newman). He is a co-founder of the academic blog Crooked Timber and from 2019 to 2022 was editor in chief of The Monkey Cage, a political science blog hosted at the Washington Post. He holds a BA and MA in politics from University College Dublin, an MA in German and European Studies from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and a PhD in government from Georgetown University.

Michael Froman headshot

Michael Froman

Ambassador Michael Froman is president of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He was previously vice chairman and president, strategic growth, at Mastercard, chairman of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, and a distinguished fellow at CFR. Froman served in President Barack Obama’s cabinet as the U.S. trade representative from June 2013 to January 2017. From January 2009 to June 2013, Froman served as assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor for international economic affairs. Prior to joining the Obama administration, Froman held several roles at Citigroup and spent seven years in the U.S. government serving as chief of staff and deputy assistant secretary for Eurasia and the Middle East at the U.S. Department of Treasury. He was also a director for international economic affairs at the National Security Council and National Economic Council. He received a bachelor’s degree in public and international affairs from Princeton University, a doctorate in international relations from Oxford University, and law degree from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Peter Harrell headshot

Peter Harrell

Peter E. Harrell is a nonresident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where his research focuses on issues of U.S. domestic economic competitiveness, trade policy, and the use of economic tools in U.S. foreign policy. He is also an attorney advising companies and investors on international legal, regulatory, and geopolitical risks. From January 2021 through 2022, Harrell served at the U.S. White House as senior director for international economics. From 2012 to 2014, Harrell served as the deputy assistant secretary for counter threat finance and sanctions in the State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs and from 2009 to 2012 served on the State Department’s policy planning staff, where he was instrumental in developing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s economic statecraft agenda. Harrell is a graduate of Princeton University and holds a JD from the Yale Law School.

Kristen Silverberg headshot

Kristen Silverberg

Kristen Silverberg is president and COO of Business Roundtable. She was previously a managing director at the Institute of International Finance. She served in the George W. Bush Administration as U.S. Ambassador to the European Union from 2008 to 2009 and as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs from 2005 to 2008. She also held a number of senior positions at the White House including deputy assistant to the president. Silverberg served in 2003 in Baghdad, Iraq, for which she received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service. She formerly practiced law at Williams and Connolly, LLP in Washington, D.C., and served as a law clerk to United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Judge David Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals. She graduated from Harvard College and the University of Texas School of Law.

Philip Zelikow

Philip Zelikow

Philip Zelikow is the Botha-Chan Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is also the White Burkett Miller Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Virginia, where he also was a director of the Miller Center. Later he also served UVA as dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. His scholarly work has focused on critical episodes in American and world history. His federal service during five administrations has included positions in the White House, State Department, and Pentagon. He directed a short-lived federal agency, the 9/11 Commission. He is one of the few individuals to serve on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Boards for presidents of both parties, in the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. An author of an early monograph on economic intelligence and case studies on economic policymaking, his current forays in economic statecraft involve work on Russian assets & Ukraine, Taiwan, and the national security agenda for AI.

Alexander Bick headshot

Alexander Bick (moderator)

Alexander Bick is an associate professor of practice at the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. He previously served in the Biden administration as director for strategic planning at the National Security Council and as senior advisor and a member of the policy planning staff at the U.S. Department of State. Among other responsibilities, he led the interagency "Tiger Team" charged with planning for Russia's invasion of Ukraine and helped to develop the 2022 National Security Strategy of the United States. Earlier in his career, he served at the State Department and National Security Council in the Obama administration, where his work focused on Syria. He helped to establish the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Bick graduated with a BA in political science from the University of Chicago, received a diploma in economics and an MSc in economic history from the London School of Economics, and holds a PhD in history from Princeton. 

Scott Miller headshot

Scott Miller (moderator)

Scott C. Miller is the director of the Miller Center's Project on Democracy and Capitalism and an assistant professor at the Miller Center. He is also a lecturer and research associate at the UVA Darden School of Business. From 2019 to 2021, he held a postdoctoral fellowship in economic and business history at the Yale School of Management’s International Center for Finance. As an economic historian, Miller examines the development of modern economic systems, particularly during periods of instability and volatility. He is the author or co-author of numerous scholarly papers on economic history, financial crises, and the interplay between societal and economic change. He also has written or co-written 10 case studies on financial crises and economic development. Miller earned a BA from Vanguard University, an MA in American history from George Mason University, and an MA and PhD in economic history from the University of Virginia.

William Antholis headshot

William Antholis (introduction)

William J. Antholis has served as director and CEO of UVA's Miller Center of Public Affairs since January 2015. In that time, the Miller Center has strengthened its position as the leading nonpartisan research institution on the American presidency and worked with scholars across the University of Virginia to deliver vital research to policymakers and the public. Before coming to the Miller Center, Antholis served as managing director at the Brookings Institution from 2004 to 2014, working directly with Brookings's president and vice presidents. Antholis is the author of Inside Out India and China: Local Politics Go Global (2013) and co-author (with Strobe Talbott) of Fast Forward: Ethics and Politics in the Age of Global Warming (2010). He has published articles, book chapters, and opinion pieces on U.S. politics, U.S. foreign policy, international organizations, the G8, climate change, and trade.