Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for free
A guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the world.
President Donald Trump has nominated economist Stephen Millan, who served in his first term, to chair the Council of Economic Advisers.
With this nomination, the president-elect not only criticizes Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell, but also someone who has accused the Biden administration of manipulating the economy and “usurping” the central bank’s role. He is aiming to move up to an economic post in the White House.
“Steve will work with the rest of my economic team to deliver a great economic boom that will lift all Americans,” President Trump said in a statement Sunday.
Mr. Millan served as a senior economic policy advisor at the Treasury Department during the first Trump administration.
Now a senior strategist at hedge fund Hudson Bay Capital Management, he said it was an honor. “I look forward to helping realize the President’s policy agenda of creating a thriving, non-inflationary economy that creates prosperity for all Americans,” he posted on X.
The White House Council of Economic Advisers is a three-person group that advises the president on economic policy.
President Trump threatened America’s trading partners on his first day in office by vowing to impose steep tariffs, including a 25% tariff on products from Mexico and Canada and a 10% tariff on imports from China.
During the election campaign, President Trump pledged to impose a 20% blanket tariff on all imports from the United States and a 60% tariff on imports from China, indicating that his policies in his second term would be more protectionist. suggested that it had the potential to destroy the world economy and society. than his first market.
The president-elect also promised to renew tax cuts enacted during his first White House tenure.
Earlier this year, Milan co-authored a paper accusing the Biden administration’s Treasury of manipulating the economy during the election, calling the government’s reliance on short-term debt amounting to “stealth quantitative easing,” and calling the Fed to fight inflation. He claimed that it was interfering with his ability.
“By adjusting the maturity profile of government debt issuance, the Treasury is dynamically managing financial conditions and, through it, the economy, usurping the Federal Reserve’s core functions,” he wrote with economist Nouriel Roubini. There is.
“We call this novel tool ‘Activist Treasury Issuance’ (ATI). By manipulating the amount of interest rate risk investors hold, ATI is similar to the Fed’s quantitative easing program. We are active through channels.”
Mr Milan co-authored an article in FT Alphaville last year warning of the dangers of the two-tier bond market. A two-tier bond market would “undermine the ability of U.S. Treasuries to serve as risk-free collateral supporting the global financial system” and create a crisis for the United States. Disruption of emerging economies falling into default.
Milan also announced more aggressive fiscal and monetary policy measures in October 2020, about a month before that year’s elections, to support economic recovery amid the coronavirus pandemic. He criticized Mr. Powell for calling for stimulus checks.
“In October 2020, on the eve of the presidential election, Mr. Powell was politically and economically wrong to urge Congress to ‘go big’ with fiscal stimulus. ‘s $3 trillion proposal,” Millan wrote. At X in September. “I know what happened next.”
Milan must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
Last month, President Trump nominated Kevin Hassett to head the National Economic Council.
