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Donald Trump appointed Stephen Meran, an economist who served during his first term, to chair the Council of Economic Advisers.
With the nomination, the president-elect seeks to ascend to the position of economist in the White House as not only a critic of Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell, but also one who has accused the Biden administration of manipulating the economy and “usurping” the role of the central bank.
“Steve will work with the rest of my economic team to achieve great economic prosperity that lifts up all Americans,” Trump said in a statement on Sunday.
Meiran was a senior economic policy adviser at the Treasury Department in the first Trump administration.
He, who is currently a senior strategist at hedge fund Hudson Bay Capital Management, said he was honored. “I look forward to working to help implement the President's policy agenda to create a prosperous, non-inflationary economy that brings prosperity to 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.
Trump threatened US trading partners, pledging to impose comprehensive tariffs, including 25% duties on goods coming from Mexico and Canada and 10% duties on Chinese imports, on his first day in office.
During his election campaign, Trump pledged to impose 20% tariffs on all US imports, as well as 60% tariffs on Chinese imports, suggesting that his policies during his second term may be even more protectionist and destructive to the global economy. Markets from his first.
The president-elect also pledged to renew the tax cuts he approved during his first term in the White House.
Earlier this year, Meiran co-wrote a paper indicting the Biden-era Treasury Department Manipulating the economy during electionsClaiming that the government's reliance on short-term debt amounts to “hidden quantitative easing and hampers the Fed's ability to combat inflation.”
“By adjusting the maturity date of its debt issues, the Treasury is dynamically managing financial conditions and, through them, the economy, usurping the Fed’s core functions,” he wrote with economist Nouriel Roubini.
“We call this new tool ‘activist treasury issuance,’ or ATI. By manipulating the amount of interest rate risk held by investors, ATI operates through the same channels as the Fed’s quantitative easing programs.”
At FT Alphaville last year, Miran co-authored an article warning against Two-tier bond market riskThis would weaken the ability of Treasuries to act as a risk-free collateral supporting the global financial system, and bring to the United States the chaos of an emerging economy default.
Meiran also criticized Powell for urging more aggressive fiscal and monetary stimulus in October 2020, about a month before that year's election, to help the economic recovery amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Powell was politically and economically wrong when he urged Congress to move forward with fiscal stimulus in October 2020, on the eve of the presidential election, suggesting that voters preferred Democrats’ $3 trillion proposals to Republicans’ $500 billion proposals,” Meiran wrote. On X in September. “We know what happened next.”
Miran must be confirmed by the US Senate.
Last month, Trump appointed Kevin Hassett as head of the National Economic Council.
