A digital dollar would help the U.S. and its allies keep China in check

Chinese officials have made no secret that their greatly accelerated efforts at introducing and distributing the digital yuan are an opening move in their long-term strategy to undermine the dollar’s global supremacy and expand their influence.

Despite that, leading U.S. financial officials have rolled their eyes at any suggestion that deeper dangers lurk for the dollar, and thus also for U.S. national security, in the global digital currency race. Even as China marches forward and bitcoin’s value reaches $1 trillion, the Federal Reserve had been in no hurry to be a contestant.

Until now.

This week marked a public turning point for the most significant U.S. government officials engaged in international finance — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. Josh Lipsky, director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomic Center, tweeted that it marked “the firing of a starting gun.”

At a New York Times event on Monday with Secretary Yellen, CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin prompted her most full-throated endorsement yet of a digital dollar, or Central Bank Digital Currency, or CBDC. Though Sorkin called Yellen’s attention to an Atlantic Council survey with Harvard’s Belfer Center, showing that 70 countries now have digital currency projects, Yellen’s focus instead was on the domestic good a digital dollar could do Americans.

“I think it makes sense for central banks to be looking at it,” said Yellen, in a historic snippet on snapchat.

“I gather that people at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston are working with researchers at MIT to study the properties of it. We do have a problem with financial inclusion. Too many Americans really don’t have access to easy payment systems and bank accounts. This is something that a digital dollar, a central bank digital currency, could help with. I think it could result in faster, safer and cheaper payments.”

In congressional testimony a day later, Fed Chair Powell also broke new ground, calling the digital dollar “a high priority project for us.” He added, “We are committed to solving the technology problems, and consulting very broadly with the public and very transparently with all interested constituencies whether we should do this.”

Yet while the Fed consults, China executes.