I'm always amused when people are shocked by people doing exactly what they said they’d do. Everything that has happened over the past week was publicly announced months ago.

Stephen Miran, widely viewed as the architect of Trump's trade policy, published a paper "A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System" in November of 2024, laying out everything that has happened (as well as many things that are yet to come). The paper isn’t some vague philosophical rant: it’s a detailed policy playbook.

Almost all trade is denominated, either directly or indirectly, in dollars. This leads to most countries, as their economies grow, becoming net dollar importers. This leads to trade deficits or dollar appreciation against their local currencies, making American exports less competitive.

To Miran, this poses an existential threat to America, as dollar appreciation can lead to accelerating financialization of the American economy. Eventually, American's hollowed out economy undermines the dollars status as a reserve currency, leading to the collapse of the dollar system.

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