# Stephen Miran Economist who supplied the intellectual case for [[Donald Trump]]'s second-term trade and dollar agenda, then took that case into the government twice: first as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, then as a sitting White House official on the [[Federal Reserve]] Board. He wrote the best-known version of the [[Mar-a-Lago Accord]]. His time on the Fed, while still holding his White House job, set a precedent that critics of the administration's approach to [[Central Bank Independence]] continue to cite. ## Background Miran was born in 1983 in Pearl River, New York. He studied economics and philosophy at Boston University and earned a PhD in economics from Harvard in 2010. His advisers included Martin Feldstein, who chaired [[Ronald Reagan]]'s CEA (Wikipedia; Fed). In the first Trump administration he joined the [[Department of the Treasury]] in April 2020 as a senior adviser for economic policy and left after the January 2021 inauguration. He then co-founded the investment firm Amberwave Partners with a Treasury colleague. In 2023 he moved to the [[Manhattan Institute]] as a senior fellow, and in February 2024 he joined Hudson Bay Capital Management as a senior strategist (Wikipedia; Fed board biography). ## The Mar-a-Lago Accord paper In **November 2024**, while at Hudson Bay, Miran published **"A User's Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System."** It argued that reserve-currency demand keeps the dollar overvalued and hollows out American manufacturing. It laid out tariffs as leverage and the US security umbrella as something allies should pay for. It sketched a negotiated deal in which partners would strengthen their currencies and swap their Treasuries into very long bonds, with a "user fee" on foreign official holders as the fallback if they refused. Commentators named the negotiated version the "Mar-a-Lago Accord." See that page for the paper, the criticism and what was actually implemented. ## CEA chair Trump named him CEA chair-designate on December 22, 2024. The Senate Banking Committee advanced the nomination 13–11 along party lines on March 6, 2025, and the Senate confirmed him on March 12. A Substack tally gives the vote as 53–46. As chair he gave the agenda its public form at the [[Hudson Institute]] on **April 7, 2025**, five days after the [[Liberation Day Tariffs]]. He said "the reserve function of the dollar has caused persistent currency distortions" and offered trading partners a menu of options, ending with "simply write checks to Treasury that help us finance global public goods." ## The Fed seat Trump named him on **August 7, 2025** to fill the Fed Board seat vacated by Adriana Kugler. The Senate confirmed him **48–47** on September 15, and he was sworn in on September 16, 2025, to a term that expired January 31, 2026. He kept serving after that until a successor arrived. He kept his CEA title at first. A sitting White House economist voting on interest rates was itself a break with precedent. He resigned from the CEA on **February 3, 2026**, writing that he had "promised the Senate that if I should stay on the Board past January, I would formally depart the Council." Senator [[Elizabeth Warren]] called the timing "141 days too late" (Banking Dive; CNBC). On the [[Federal Open Market Committee]] he dissented at six straight meetings, every one in favor of deeper cuts than the majority approved: | Meeting | Committee decision | Miran's preference | |---|---|---| | Sept 17, 2025 | Cut 1/4 point | Cut 1/2 point | | Oct 29, 2025 | Cut 1/4 point | Cut 1/2 point | | Dec 10, 2025 | Cut 1/4 point | Cut 1/2 point | | Jan 28, 2026 | Hold | Cut 1/4 point (joined by Christopher Waller) | | Mar 18, 2026 | Hold at 3.50–3.75% | Cut 1/4 point (lone dissent) | | Apr 29, 2026 | Hold | Cut 1/4 point | He resigned from the Board on **May 14, 2026**, effective when his successor was sworn in. [[Kevin Warsh]] took the seat on May 22. Yahoo Finance reported that Miran had spent his final months preparing plans to shrink the Fed's balance sheet, a priority he shares with Warsh. ## After the Fed On **June 15, 2026** Miran returned to Hudson Bay Capital as a senior strategist, his first role since leaving the Fed (Bloomberg; Axios). He said he was "delighted to rejoin the talented team at Hudson Bay." Axios noted that he would again work alongside Nouriel Roubini, with whom he had co-written a paper on Treasury debt issuance. The path ran from hedge fund to White House to central bank and back to the same hedge fund in about 18 months. For the Fed, the case raises the question of what a governor carries back to a trading firm. For Miran, it means the author of the accord thesis is again selling market views on the policies he helped design. ## See also - [[Mar-a-Lago Accord]] · [[Interest Rate Policy Timeline]] · [[Central Bank Independence]] - [[Jerome Powell]] · [[Kevin Warsh]] · [[Lisa Cook]] · [[Scott Bessent]] - [[Liberation Day Tariffs]] · [[Tariffs]] · [[Hudson Institute]] · [[Manhattan Institute]]