Granted, President Trump vetoed the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020, the most recent expansion of the Bank Secrecy Act regime. But that’s just a technicality–Trump vetoed the National Defense Authorization Act, a bill Congress stuffed with all kinds of “must pass” items, including the Anti-Money Laundering Act.
Both administrations, in fact, have done little more than carry on the traditions of the past. For decades, the federal government has expanded financial surveillance and federal involvement in money.
So last week’s announcement–which, technically, wasn’t a new announcement–that the U.S. Treasury “will convene an interagency working group to explore the development of a CBDC” should come as no surprise.
In September, the administration released a series of reports on digital assets. As my colleague Nick Anthony pointed out, the reports demonstrated the administration wanted to expand financial surveillance. It was hardly comforting that “the Treasury, much like the Federal Reserve, noted in its reports that it has not officially decided on issuing a CBDC.”
Sure enough, at a Brookings Institution event in October, Under Secretary for Domestic Finance Nellie Liang announced Treasury was committed to “promot[ing] further work on advancing a CBDC.” That sounds awfully CBDC friendly.