“Maybe I will have to answer the question of ‘Has everything been below the cap?’, but it was below the cap, so . . . I’m not scared to tell the people that the source of my business was Russian oil.” Give a cap, they’ll take a mile www.ft.com/content/ec74...

🔥New publication!🔥 We are losing the fight against financial crime. In a new article, now forthcoming in the Berkeley Business Law Journal, I propose a novel market-based solution: financial crime bounty hunters. Short thread (🧵) #lawsky #polisky #econsky papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Truly seems we're on the verge of a huge shock to the car industry over the Nexperia crisis - will keep track of things in this rolling thread EU's car-making body said today assembly lines in Europe "might only be days away" from grinding to a halt

🚨💥Exit poll for Dutch parliamentary election of today: serious chance that the liberal Democrats of D66 come first ahead of Wilders. Sort of a surprise given previous polls

Fascinating development. China has long been seeking to replicate ASML domestically. Can Silicon Valley do better?

“The Dutch government seized control of chipmaker Nexperia after Washington warned the company would not be removed from its export control list if its Chinese chief executive Zhang Xuezheng remained in charge, according to court filings.”

China announced a major escalation in export controls on critical minerals this week. ChinaTalk provides a great overview in conversation with Chris McGuire and Chris Miller --> www.chinatalk.media/p/emergency-...

A quiet bombshell in Europe’s tech world The Dutch government seems to have effectively frozen operations of Nexperia, the Chinese-owned chipmaker, citing national security, according to corporate filing today - via @zichenwanghere

Last December, China sought to choke off America's access to a critical strategic mineral. But in a new post, I find that supply chains adjusted at lightning speed. Belgium, of all places, has replaced China as America's top source. It shows that weaponizing trade can have very strange side-effects

*What One Mineral Reveals About the U.S.–China Trade War* China has banned the export of antimony to the U.S. But in a new post, I find that global supply chains - both legal and illegal - are finding ways to adjust. #polisky #econsky #lawsky #china mileskellerman.substack.com/p/what-one-m...

As Lester Bangs once said, "You'll meet them all again on their long journey to the middle" www.ft.com/content/5b00...

Devils in the details. EU wants to issue long-term bonds backed by frozen Russian assets. Requires guarantee sanctions are in place throughout maturation period (the legal basis of the freeze). But sanctions must be renewed by unanimous vote every six months. www.ft.com/content/4585...

🚨New working paper🚨 In this updated work with Annette Alstadsaeter, @bluebery-planterose.com , @gabrielzucman.bsky.social and @andokl.bsky.social , we use leaked data to chart the rise of offshore real estate in Dubai www.taxobservatory.eu//www-site/up...

"Sri Lanka has denied Chinese military vessels entry into Hambantota several times despite China Merchant Group having an 85 percent controlling stake in the port...while [CMG] may have a controlling stake to operate the port, the Sri Lanka Port Authority, a state body, retains legal ownership."

Fascinating topic and thought-provoking argument about the dangers of preemptively striking suspicious satellites —>

“…SEALs punctured the [civilian] boat crew’s lungs with knives to make sure their bodies would sink.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/u...

Following post-Crimea sanctions, "Russian deposits in tax havens increased by an average of 15% relative to their synthetic control [$2.25 billion]" From new working paper by Langenmayr et al, "Bypassing Sanctions: Hide ‘n Seek in Tax Havens?" www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo...

This interview, which is also available to listen to as a podcast, provides a useful overview of some of the dangerous trends we’ve been seeing in recent months regarding federalization and militarization of state and local police functions.

FinCEN released a notice today urging financial institutions to pay attention to Chinese-Mexican money laundering networks. I touched on this topic in a prior post and have a lengthier piece in progress --> FinCEN release: www.fincen.gov/sites/defaul... mileskellerman.substack.com/p/the-disass...

“The reality of Trump’s threat to the very system that investors depend on has failed to become the conventional wisdom among traders…” There’s a cognitive dissonance here. Accurately pricing in regime change is so costly as to be psychologically unfathomable. So we just…don’t.

Now let’s bundle those bets into a synthetic product, and allow college students to parlay bets on that product with the Badgers beating Ohio State, all financed through Klarna. It’s the American way. www.wsj.com/finance/comm...

www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state... @abenewman.bsky.social and meself are a cover story.

1/US gov stating unprecedented financial expropriation. From tech to law firms to Universities, threat of state coercion is used for corporate tithing. Without pushback, this behavior will escalate and threaten the economy. Who will invest when the gov will just take it. fortune.com/2025/08/13/b...

Reuters reports the US is embedding tracking devices in the packaging of AI chip shipments to China. As I wrote in a recent post (below), the ultimate goal is much more ambitious: embed tracking into the chips themselves. #polisky #econsky #lawsky www.reuters.com/world/china/...

This was really something. What struck me most was the sense of sadness underneath the surface. The host saying he’s far right “only because they’re kind of my community.”

A fact befitting of our times: the U.S. Army operates 1,889 slot machines in 79 foreign bases. www.wired.com/story/us-mil...

Why did China’s cyber regulator just summon Nvidia over security concerns? I have an essay for you —> open.substack.com/pub/mileskel...

A good way to understand this is to substitute “Meta” for “an AI” in this sentence:

The connecting thread between Chris Hayes, Ezra Klein, Zohran Mamdani and Brian Eno. www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-old-de...

Want to buy a military-grade rifle capable of piercing armor? Florida requires no permit, no background check, and there is no limit on the quantity you can purchase. And that's great news for Haiti's gangs. Great visual investigation by the @financialtimes.com ig.ft.com/haiti-gangs/

A significant escalation in the war on general purpose computing.

The U.S. wants to track the location of every AI microchip. And it also wants the ability to remotely shut them down. But this isn't just about smuggling. In a new post, I argue this might be the power play of the century. #polisky #econsky #tech mileskellerman.substack.com/p/this-chip-...

This is a strikingly astute piece of analysis that builds in part on @abenewman.bsky.social and my ideas about weaponized interdependence, but is so much more than that.

The U.S. wants to track the location of every AI microchip. And it also wants the ability to remotely shut them down. But this isn't just about smuggling. In a new post, I argue this might be the power play of the century. #polisky #econsky #tech mileskellerman.substack.com/p/this-chip-...

U.S. companies are willing to create "sovereign cloud offerings" that keep Europeans in control of their local data infrastructure. But one observor warns these offerings could be a mirage: "sovereignty washing." www.ft.com/content/5e25...

Jho Low, mastermind of the 1MDB scandal, has reportedly been found living in Shanghai on an Australian passport. whalehunting.projectbrazen.com/rich-list-pl...

The EU new price cap is set dynamically to be $15 below global benchmarks, trying to lock in a permanent discount + make it more difficult for EU affiliated vessels to take part in the trade. would be more effective if G7 coordinated and backed up w US enforcement www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

A remarkable open-source investigation, employing satellite imagery and 3D models of container ships, estimates that North Korea sent 4.2 to 5.8 million artillery rounds to Russia via 64 shipments on sanctioned vessels. Full report: static.opensourcecentre.org/assets/osc_b...

Can Russian central bankers, finance ministers, and bank executives be held liable for enabling war crimes in Ukraine? That is the thesis of an unprecedented ICC filing submitted by a consortium of advocacy groups --> www.ft.com/content/fcc7...

"A number of people are also being held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, a military facility originally established to hold suspects captured in counter-terrorism operations and now run by the Virginia-based company Akima." ig.ft.com/us-immigrati...

There is a slow-moving battle in the Netherlands between human rights and security interests. Should F-35 spare parts be exported to Israel? Should radar systems be sold to Egpyt? The debate largely centers around how the government should measure the 'risk' of human rights violations -->

And thus began the great internet fire of ‘25

Smugglers rejoice! open.substack.com/pub/mileskel...

“Among the lesser known changes in the bill is a provision slapping an excise tax equal to 1 percent of the money being transmitted abroad by immigrants in the U.S.”

FCA exploring reduced KYC requirements for smaller trade financing transactions. This seems to contradict increased interest in enforcing export controls on Russia by following the money. There is a conflict here between security priorities and competitiveness www.ft.com/content/9508...

Prior to the Trump administration, a token like this would likely have been considered an unregistered security by the SEC, and its sales illegal offerings.

Very grateful to have recieved a grant from @isrfoundation.bsky.social to host a multi-stakeholder workshop on the rise of private firms as enforcers of global trade security. This is part of a new-ish focus of mine on the fascinating politics of export control enforcement isrf.org/people/miles...

For the European Parliament, Eric Monnet, ‪@edomartino.bsky.social‬ and I wrote on USD stablecoins: Will Donald Trump get rich selling his private $$$ coins to EU residents? Probably not, but stablecoins may still uproot the global monetary order. www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/2964...

New frontier in financial warfare: pro-Israel group steals $90 million from Iranian crypto exchange and, rather than use that money, stores it in new addresses with politically charged names: ‘1FuckiRGCTerroristsNoBiTEXXXaAovLX’ www.chainalysis.com/blog/nobitex...

Catching up on my reading and finally got to this solid @mileskellerman.bsky.social piece on crypto regulation. It makes me both miss and not-miss my days writing about web3. And some of the points he raises about crypto also apply to AI.