The “chastening” of what appears to be simply President Donald Trump’s tariff policy; could present multiple challenges and opportunities for new international investment agreements among major nations, including the United States.
The question, “What do Trump and his team think they’re doing?” is often referred to Council of Economic Advisers head Stephen Miran and his November 2024 piece, “A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System"—as for example in a thorough blog post by Simplicius April 4; and also to input by Vice President J.D. Vance’s economic thinking. In Miran’s “guide,” a series of policy maneuvers are to be pulled off, some of them appearing mutually contradictory, but perhaps to be carried out in a meticulous sequencing to amount to a Houdini-like self-entrapment and escape.
The strategy may well be: Push the United States economy into an assumedly short and shallow recession, by aggressive spending cuts and aggressive trade disruption. Use that stagnation to push the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) into substantial interest rate cuts, as Trump was demanding of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell again on April 4. The rate cuts and economic stagnation will lead to significant devaluation of the U.S. dollar, by market action or by some “Mar-a-Lago Accords”; that devaluation, combined with low interest rates and new tariff walls, will make the United States a manufacturing and exporting superpower once again, and will drive U.S. and foreign-owned companies alike to “reshore” their production. President Trump will continually be bargaining for such industrial investment agreements, perhaps “reciprocally” for tariff relief.
Trump himself reposted a video presenting essentially this approach.
