This event hosted by the Centre for Grand Strategy

As tensions rise in the Taiwan Straight, U.S. deterrence suffers from a fundamental credibility problem. The United States lacks an economic contingency plan for conflict with China. Hard decoupling through sanctions is not viable. Scholars Hugo Bromley and Eyck Freymann argue that to strengthen deterrence, the United States should prepare a “Day One” contingency plan based on economic leadership and recovery rather than focusing on threats of economic punishment that are likely to backfire. By harnessing incentives and market forces, Washington and core US allies can trigger avalanche decoupling in trade while working with the interests of third states and preserving dollar hegemony and the rules-based trading system.

About the Speakers

Hugo Bromley is a historian of manufacturing, geopolitics, and international trade. As the Engelsberg Applied History Research Fellow, Dr Bromley acts as assistant director at the Centre for Geopolitics, coordinates the Centre’s work on economic statecraft and applied history and leading the UK Union Programme.

Articles by Dr Bromley have been accepted for publication in the English Historical Review and International Security, as well as the New York Times and Foreign Affairs. His current book project, Economic Patriotism, looks at the role of international trade policy in forming the British state in the early modern period. He is the co-author, with Eyck Freymann, of On Day One, an Economic Contingency Plan for a Taiwan Crisis, published by Hoover Institution Press.

Eyck Freymann is a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University. Trained as a historian and China specialist, he works on strategic deterrence in the Taiwan Strait, the geopolitics of climate change, industrial policy for emerging defense technology, U.S. and PRC economic statecraft, crisis contingency planning, and other national security topics.

Dr Freymann is also a Non-Resident Research Fellow with the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College. His first book, One Belt One Road: Chinese Power Meets the World, was published by Harvard University Press in 2021. His next book, Defending Taiwan, will be published by OUP in 2026. His writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, The Economist, War on the Rocks, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, and other venues.