The European Union Program at Princeton presents a discussion with Ryan Weldzius, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Villanova University. He researches the distributional consequences of economic interdependence and the constraints this places on the policies of states.  The core argument of his work is that increased global value chain trade alters the policy preferences of firms, which in turn impacts policy outcomes. In his book manuscript Currency Wars in Retreat (in preparation), he illustrates how global value chains undercut the economic and political benefits of currency manipulation. In this talk, he will discuss how global value chains can act as a buffer against global shocks, such as the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2020 global pandemic. Ryan received his Ph.D. from UCLA in 2018 and in AY2019-2020, he was a Fellow in the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton.