The last weeks have not been suitable for anyone who operates or invests as a guide the norms that have governed for decades in world economic and political relations. He President of the United States, Donald Trumphas launched an unprecedented commercial war in practically a century. And although he has done so erratically and chaoticly, in the midst of confusion signs of a methodof one strategy.
Trump has raised at the moment a monumental confrontation with China with tariffs that in some cases, according to the White House on Wednesday, arrive at the 245%. It has al rest of the world punished with taxes of 10%in addition to those of 25% that apply to imports to the US steel, aluminum and vehicles. And he has given More than 70 nations a term until July 9 Days to negotiate an exit that avoids the so -called “reciprocal” tariffs, more onerous.
With all those Trump levies seeks to reach the goal of reduce US trade deficit and relaunch the production of manufacturing In the country. And when raising how to get to these objectives, the role of the dollar as a reserve border of the world.
The “Mar-A-Lago Agreement” and Stephen Look
The president, guided by his beliefs and his instincts and the ideas of some of his main economic advisors, states that his allies or commercial partners must bear part of the global defense and security umbrella that Washington displays, as well as helping you with your national debt. And those advisors have prepared a roadmap in which it is intended to undo the World Economic and Geopolitical Order y rebuild it at the service of US interests.
The idea of a rearrangement has considered, for example, the Treasury Secretary, Scott Besent. And the great ideological livelihood for Trump’s actions has been identified in a document published in November Stephen Miran, president of the Trump Economic Advisors Councilwhen I worked for the Hudson Bay Capital Investment Fund.
The basic idea that they look at is Find a weaker and cheaper dollar that revives manufacturing in the US and keeps the US competition at the same time as the currency is maintained as the reserve currency. It is the rest of the world that pays. And it is a plan that includes what the economist has baptized as “Mar-A-Lago Agreement”a “poetic license” in tribute to agreements such as Bretton Woodsthat after World War II he laid the foundations of the world economic order, or the AGREEMENT OF THE PLAZAwith which in 1985 Japan, France, United Kingdom and Germany They agreed with the US a devaluation of the dollar.
The November document is titled “User Guide to restructure the Global Commerce System” and in it Miran raised the tariffs as a pressure element That it can force to negotiate commercial partners, who would be more receptive to some kind of agreement on the devaluation of the dollar, which would do the most competitive US exports, and the refinancing of the debt, with the holders of that debt accepting, for example, to change their current bonds for another to 100 years, with much lower or void interest, which would reduce the cost of the US to finance.
Los dutyin Miran’s own words, they are “palo” with which to take to the negotiating table and stay under the umbrella of the security In defense offered by the US is the “carrot”. And earlier this month, in a speech at the Hudson Institute, he put on the table some “ideas” of how other countries can collaborate with Trump.
Among them he mentioned “Accept export tariffs to the US without reprisals”“aCabar with unfair and harmful commercial practices opening their markets and buying more from the US “, “Raise your defense expense and US acquisitions, buying more goods produced in the US “e” invest and Install factories in the US “. The fifth era, “Simply write Treasury checks They help finance global public goods. “
Derailment
For months observers and analysts have been writing and scrutinizing the proposal. Signatures of Wall Street They even spoke to clients about the impact that that plan could have on their investments. And voices such as former Greek Economy Minister of Economy Yanis varoufakiswhich defined the plan of “solid but risky. “
They look, however, had written that for their ideas, they would take care of “careful planning, careful planning, Precise execution and attention to the steps to minimize adverse consequences “. And it does not seem that Trump would read or discuss that part of the document.
The impulsive and disorderly way in which the Republican has undertaken the deployment and escalation of his commercial war, as well as the reactions of the public debt market, has made that they never believed that there were a plan to join others that, even having credibility, they are already unfeasible to repeat an agreement that an agreement like the place is repeated. At mostthey believe, Trump can achieve individual agreements.
With their bands, in addition, the president has given blows to credibility and trust In the US, something that has made, in the face of the conversation about the Mar-A-Lago agreement, now dominates another narrative in the markets: that a Potential Foreign Capital Exoduswith treasure bond sales, reservations and with the devalued dollaryes, but as they have written in the ‘Financial Times’ economists Steven Kamin and Mark Sobel, “Not in the way Trump would like”.
