US Official: Lebanon’s faces financial crisis

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Transcript

00:00I want to kick off by asking you, you've just come out of Lebanon, is that government moving fast

00:04enough? Yes and no. So I will say, first of all, they're dealing with a historic challenge. You

00:10know, obviously, the past 10 years have been devastating for Lebanon, the financial crash,

00:16the port explosion. And of course, what you've really seen is militias around the country,

00:21especially Hezbollah, have a state within a state. Now, I'm incredibly encouraged by President Aoun,

00:27by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam. These are people that really care about reform. But, you know,

00:32you covered economics for a long time. Lebanon's financial situation is as bad as it gets.

00:38They're in a hole. It's worse than Greece during the financial crisis. These are one of the toughest

00:44things that the World Bank and the IMF have ever seen. So I think part of the reckoning is people

00:48really understanding just how bad it is. And it's not a good position whenever people in your country

00:54can't rely on the banks, right? They don't feel comfortable with the banks. So the parliament

00:59needs to pass the bank secrecy law, the bank resolution legislation, because ultimately what

01:05needs to happen, I mean, there's so much that needs to happen as it relates to economic reform.

01:09But you need people in Lebanon to feel safe and secure about putting their money in the bank,

01:14because what's happened, what's proliferated since that crash, is a cash-based economy.

01:19And cash-based economy fuels bad actors, corruption, terrorism financing. And because of that,

01:27you did see, unfortunately, Lebanon was gray-listed at the FATF.