Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has appointed Judy Shelton, whose nomination to the Federal Reserve was blocked by the Senate, as a counselor to the department.
Shelton will advise Bessent on currency policy, “with a particular focus on evaluating financial conditions in China,” according to a Treasury statement.
The appointment is notable given that Shelton is not widely regarded as a China expert within financial or foreign policy circles.
Shelton authored “The Coming Soviet Crash” in 1989 and later “Money Meltdown,” a 1994 work focused on the need for a unified international monetary regime.
Before joining Treasury, Shelton served as a senior fellow at the Independent Institute, a free market think tank, and previously at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
She holds a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Utah, with a career focused on monetary and financial analysis.
“Throughout her career, she has specialized in analyzing the internal monetary and financial conditions of nations and their impact on exchange rates,” the Treasury said in its announcement.
A bipartisan group of senators, including all Democrats and a handful of Republicans, rejected President Donald Trump’s 2019 nomination of Shelton as a Fed governor over concerns about her economic views.
Senators specifically objected to her views on Fed independence, her support for the gold standard, and her questioning of whether the United States needed a central bank at all.
Shelton’s appointment arrives during what appears to be a period of significant personnel instability at the Treasury Department, with high-level departures drawing scrutiny.
A recent Wall Street Journal report identified seven Senate-confirmed officials who left the department through the end of August, with only one of those positions having been filled.
Bessent recently named David Zervos, former chief market strategist at Jefferies, as a counselor, carrying the same job title as Shelton’s new role at the department.
Neither Shelton nor Zervos requires Senate confirmation, allowing Bessent to bring both advisors aboard without the congressional scrutiny that derailed Shelton’s earlier Fed nomination.
