Who is Treasury under secretary for international affairs?
The job of under secretary for international affairs at the US Treasury is a hugely important job which few people have ever heard of. It’s a political position, which means the decision as to who gets it is made not by career Treasury officials or by technocrats, but rather by the White House. The present holder of the job is Tim Adams, who most recently held a senior position in the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign. But Adams is no Bush crony – or, at least, he’s not only a Bush crony á la Michael Brown or Harriet Miers. Adams is a very smart, very competent guy, on top of his brief, who will do the Bush administration proud in an extremely difficult job. I can’t find a listing online of Adams’s predecessors. But since I moved to the US and started getting interested in such things, I can remember Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, Randy Quarles, John Taylor and now Tim Adams holding the job. (Do let me know if I missed someone.) All of them are super-smart guys with a genuine ability and passion
