Why Policy and Commercial Teams Need the Same Risk View

Article

June 26, 2026

Policy decisions can now change commercial execution. Sanctions, export controls, tariffs, payment requirements, investment restrictions, and industrial policy can affect sales, sourcing, financing, contracts, market access, and compliance. A recent Exiger Exchange conversation with Josh Lipsky of Atlantic Council points to the need for one shared risk view across policy, commercial, treasury, legal, compliance, procurement, and finance teams.

Key Takeaways

Geoeconomic risk connects policy decisions to commercial outcomes.
Policy teams often see early signals before business teams feel the impact.
Commercial teams often see operating exposure before policy teams know where to look.
Payment systems, currency requirements, and financing structures now belong in business risk reviews.
Companies should connect policy exposure to products, markets, customers, suppliers, contracts, ownership structures, and payment flows.
The goal is not perfect prediction. The goal is earlier visibility and better decisions.

What Is a Shared Risk View and Why Does It Matter Now?

A shared risk view shows where policy decisions could affect commercial activity. It connects government actions to the parts of the company that sell, source, finance, ship, contract, invest, or comply.

In an episode of Exiger Exchange, Kit Conklin asks Josh Lipsky how economic statecraft has evolved into “the default operating environment for governments and companies.”

Josh starts by defining the terms. He describes geoeconomics as the intersection of national security, foreign policy, macroeconomics, and finance. He describes economic statecraft as the tools used inside that environment, including sanctions, export controls, and tariffs.

For companies, the conversation points to a practical need: policy analysis and commercial planning have to connect. Government affairs may understand the policy direction. Commercial teams may understand customer exposure. A company’s treasury or finance team may understand payment flows and banking relationships. Procurement may understand supplier dependencies. Legal and compliance may understand regulatory obligations. If those views stay separate, leaders may miss how one policy change could affect the business.

Definition · Shared Risk View

A shared risk view connects policy tools, such as sanctions, export controls, tariffs, payment requirements, and investment restrictions, to business dependencies, including customers, suppliers, contracts, financing, payment rails, markets, ownership structures, and operating locations.

What Has Changed?

Governments are using economic tools more often to pursue national security and foreign policy goals. Business teams can no longer assume that market access, payment flows, supply chains, and capital movement sit outside policy decisions.

Josh describes the prior operating model clearly. In the post-Cold War period, the United States and Europe could often separate national security and economic policymaking. Treasury, commerce, banks, and sanctions conversations did not need to be in the same room as often.

Josh’s conclusion is direct: “We don’t live in that world anymore.”

That shift changes the business questions companies need to ask. Policy can now reach into areas that many teams treat as operational or financial details:

What currency a contract uses

Which payment system a transaction touches

Whether a supplier remains available

Whether a tariff changes market economics

Whether an export control affects a customer relationship

Whether a capital restriction changes investment exposure

Whether a government prioritizes domestic access to key products or technologies

The shift is also broader than Washington. In the same conversation, Kit points to new economic security tools emerging from Brussels, including tariffs and measures affecting chips. Josh explains that Europe has become more focused on Chinese industrial overcapacity, particularly as Chinese electric vehicles put pressure on European automaking.

For global companies, one national policy lens is not enough.

Where Organizations Commonly Get It Wrong

Companies often misread geoeconomic risk because they split it across functions. One team tracks the policy. Another team owns the customer. Another team owns suppliers. Another team handles payment terms. The risk appears manageable until those dependencies collide.

They treat policy as a briefing instead of a decision input

Policy analysis often stays too far from commercial decisions. A government affairs update may explain a proposed tariff, sanction, export control, or investment restriction. The business needs a second question: which products, contracts, customers, suppliers, payment terms, or markets would be affected?

A policy update has limited value if it does not connect to revenue, cost, delivery, or compliance decisions.

They map suppliers but not financial exposure

Many companies have improved supplier visibility. Fewer have the same discipline around payment systems, currency exposure, settlement routes, financing structures, and banking dependencies.

Josh identifies financial infrastructure as a major source of future pressure. He points to SWIFT, banks, and the systems that move money around the world as financial chokepoints.

For a business, payment risk is not abstract. It can affect whether a customer can pay, whether a contract must use a different currency, whether a transaction touches a regulated financial institution, and whether the company must onboard into a different payment system.

They assume commercial exposure is obvious

Commercial exposure may sit inside contract terms, subcontractor relationships, payment requirements, customer ownership, or country-specific financing structures. It may not appear in a standard country-risk review.

Kit makes the business problem concrete by asking whether American companies selling overseas could face a world where trade is not done in dollars, but instead in Chinese renminbi or another currency. Josh answers: “There definitely is a world where that happens.”

That exchange points to a broader operating issue. A sales team may see the deal. Finance may see the currency exposure. Compliance may see the sanctions concern. Policy may see the geopolitical signal. The company needs those views in one place.

They treat economic security as a Washington-only issue

Washington remains important, but the conversation makes clear that Brussels and other capitals are developing their own tools. Josh says Europe is increasingly concerned that Chinese companies, supported by large-scale production capacity and government-backed industrial policies, can produce more goods than global demand requires and sell them at prices that put pressure on European industries. That concern now extends across the value chain, including industrial production and semiconductor production.

Companies with global operations should not assume one policy environment defines the risk. A policy change in one jurisdiction can create ripple effects across multiple markets, even when the company has little direct exposure to the country making the change. For example, a tariff may increase the cost of components sourced from one region, forcing changes to pricing or supplier strategy in another. An export control may restrict access to a technology used in products sold globally, affecting customer delivery timelines and contract obligations.

Industrial policy measures can shift competitive dynamics by providing advantages to domestic producers, changing market conditions far beyond the country that introduced the policy. The key point is that policy actions rarely stay contained within national borders; they often move through supply chains, customer relationships, financing arrangements, and trade flows in ways that affect operations elsewhere.

They wait for prior conditions to return

Some companies are adapting. Others are waiting for a return to prior conditions.

Josh describes the split clearly. Some companies understand that national security priorities are changing supply chain decisions. Others are still asking when things go back. His response is direct: companies are not going back to the post-Cold War globalization model in the near or medium term. He also argues that geoeconomics is not a temporary phase. In the conversation, he says companies should expect this environment to remain a defining feature of business and policy for the next 10 to 20 years.

This matters for planning. A company that expects policy pressure to fade may delay supplier diversification, contract review, payment-risk analysis, or market-access planning. A company that treats geoeconomic risk as a durable condition can build it into routine business decisions.

What Leading Organizations Do Differently

Leading organizations connect policy signals to business dependencies. They do not leave government affairs, commercial teams, treasury, procurement, legal, compliance, and finance to interpret the same risk separately.

The conversation points to the need for a shared risk view that answers six questions.

Which markets create the most exposure?

Start with markets that matter most to revenue, growth, production, or customer delivery. Identify where policy changes could affect sales, pricing, access, payment, or fulfillment.

Relevant questions include:

Which markets are most important to current revenue?
Which markets are most important to growth?
Which markets depend on sensitive technologies, regulated goods, or strategic sectors?
Which markets require government approvals, local partners, or state-linked customers?

Which products or services are most exposed?
A shared risk view should show which products or services could be affected by tariffs, export controls, sanctions, industrial policy, or local access rules.

This is especially important when a product sits inside a broader system. A company may not sell a sensitive product directly but may supply a component, service, software layer, financing arrangement, or support function tied to one.

Which customers and counterparties matter most?
Companies need to connect policy risk to customer and counterparty exposure. This includes ownership, jurisdiction, end use, payment source, and contract obligations.

The point is not only to identify prohibited activity. It is to understand where a policy change could delay, restrict, reprice, or complicate business.

Which suppliers and operating dependencies are vulnerable?
Supplier visibility remains essential. But the shared view should show more than direct suppliers. It should include critical inputs, subcontractors, logistics, production locations, and markets where governments may prioritize domestic access or impose restrictions.

The source conversation supports the need to prepare and diversify where possible. It does not support a blanket claim that every company can diversify every exposure easily.

Which payment and financing structures could change?
The finance and treasury functions should be part of the same review. Payment systems, currency terms, financing institutions, and settlement routes can shape commercial risk.

Key questions include:

What currencies do major contracts use?
Which payment systems do transactions depend on?
Which banks or financial intermediaries are involved?
Could a customer, government, or lender require a different payment structure?
Would a change in payment rails create sanctions, compliance, or reporting concerns?

Josh explains the national security concern behind this issue: as more money moves outside the dollar, sanctions have less reach. For companies, the operating question is narrower but still important: where do payment terms, payment systems, banks, counterparties, and jurisdictions create exposure?

Which policy triggers require commercial review
The shared risk view should identify policy triggers that require business review before a deal, renewal, investment, or sourcing decision moves forward.

Examples include:

New or proposed sanctions.
Export control changes.
Tariff actions.
Outbound investment restrictions.
Industrial policy measures.
Currency or payment-system requirements.
Local-content or market-access conditions.
Restrictions tied to strategic sectors or high-value manufacturing.

A trigger should not automatically stop activity. It should require the right teams to review the commercial impact together.

Policy trigger	Commercial question
New tariff	Does pricing, margin, or sourcing change?
Export control	Can the company sell, ship, service, or support the customer?
Sanctions change	Can the company transact with the customer, bank, owner, or intermediary?
Payment requirement	Can the company accept the currency, rail, bank, or settlement process?
Investment restriction	Does the company need to change capital allocation or exposure?
Industrial policy measure	Could domestic-priority rules affect supply or delivery?

How AI, Data, or Technology Changes the Equation

Technology changes geoeconomic risk by changing how value, information, and control move across borders. Companies need better data to understand those connections, but technology alone does not decide the right response.

The conversation supports two technology-related points.

First, payment technology can change sanctions and financial-risk exposure. Josh explains that crypto is one conduit for working around the dollar. He then broadens the point to blockchain technology that could allow countries to move their own currencies on rails that do not touch U.S. banks.

Second, AI will be part of future geoeconomic tools. The conversation supports a cautious point: AI may shape how governments develop and use future economic security tools.

For companies, this creates a data problem and a governance problem. The data problem is visibility. Leaders need to know which products, customers, suppliers, contracts, payment systems, and markets are connected. The governance problem is judgment. Teams need a process for deciding which risks require action, which require monitoring, and which require senior review.

AI may help organize information, identify relationships, and flag changes. The conversation does not support a stronger claim than that. Business leaders still need clear ownership of decisions, a consistent risk language, and a shared view across functions.

What Leaders Should Do Next

Leaders should build a practical shared risk view around the business decisions most likely to be affected by policy. The work should start with revenue, sourcing, financing, payment, and market-access exposure, then connect those areas to specific policy triggers.

Start with the company’s most important commercial activities
Identify the top products, services, markets, suppliers, customers, and contracts. Focus first on the areas most important to revenue, continuity, growth, or regulatory exposure.

Add the policy tools that could affect them
For each activity, identify the relevant policy tools. These may include sanctions, export controls, tariffs, investment restrictions, payment requirements, currency exposure, industrial policy, or market-access rules.

Connect each policy tool to a business consequence
Avoid generic risk labels. State the business consequence plainly.

For example:

A tariff may change margin, pricing, or sourcing.
An export control may change whether a company can sell, ship, service, or support a customer.
A sanctions change may affect a customer, owner, bank, intermediary, vessel, or jurisdiction.
A payment requirement may change currency exposure, settlement, and compliance review.
An investment restriction may affect capital allocation, fund exposure, or board-level risk.

Bring the right teams into the same review
The shared view should be reviewed by the teams that hold different parts of the answer: policy, commercial, treasury, legal, compliance, procurement, supply chain, and finance.

This does not require a heavy committee for every issue. It requires a common view before major decisions are made.

Use the view before the company is forced to react
The best time to use the shared view is before contract renewal, market entry, supplier selection, major investment, customer expansion, or financing approval.

Josh closes the business planning point clearly: “The signs are out there.” Companies and governments need to recognize the current environment and prepare for it.

The Bottom Line

Policy decisions now move through commercial systems. They can affect who a company sells to, how it gets paid, where it sources, which markets remain attractive, and how it explains risk to stakeholders.

The companies that respond best will not treat policy and commercial decisions as separate tracks. They will use one shared view, one set of facts, and one review process to understand where policy can change the business.

Exiger Exchange | Episode 2

Geoeconomics: Where Policy Moves Markets

Watch or listen to the full conversation with Kit Conklin and Josh Lipsky about the financial infrastructure behind economic statecraft and the systems being built to route around them.