IN a remarkable speech on April 7 2025, Stephen Miran, the chief economic adviser to Donald Trump and chairman of the US Council of Economic Advisers, revealed the real goal of Trump’s tariff policy: using import tariffs as a leverage for forcing other countries to pay for maintaining US world hegemony.
 
According to Miran, the US provides two so-called “global public goods” — military protection through its worldwide network of military bases, and the dollar functioning as global reserve currency.
 
This role as a world power, according to Miran, is costly, and it is no longer acceptable, in his view, for other countries to benefit from it for free. The US wants countries to “pay their fair share,” under threat of heavy import tariffs as a sanction for refusal.
 
This strategy is described as a “Mar-a-Lago Accord” — an informal name for a new global economic order under US terms.
 
The gist of Miran’s message is that the military and financial dominance of the US must be preserved, and that it can no longer be financed solely by the US itself. He argues that it is unsustainable for other countries to benefit from US power structures without contributing to the costs.
 
The US will therefore pressure foreign governments with high import tariffs until they agree to accept favourable terms for Washington.
 
On April 2, Trump imposed very high import tariffs on nearly all countries. A few days later, he suspended that measure for three months pending talks with the countries involved (a postponement excluding China). In the meantime, a 10 per cent tariff remains in place for all countries.
 
Bretton Woods
 
Instead of reforming or democratising the current world order, established as the Bretton Woods system in 1944, Trump wants to reinforce this imperialist structure.
 
The Bretton Woods Conference of 1944 marked the beginning of an international economic order centred on US hegemony. In a world devastated by war, the US emerged as the only economic superpower.
 
Under its leadership, a system was created in which the dollar became the global anchor: other currencies were pegged to the dollar, and the dollar itself was convertible to gold. This gave the US an exceptional position, as other countries had to accumulate dollars to keep their economies running and to trade, while the US could print dollars without issue.
 
The institutions created as part of the Bretton Woods system — the IMF and the World Bank — were established in Washington and largely operated according to US interests and conditions.
 
Bretton Woods formed the economic pillar of that hegemony, Nato laid its military foundation. Under the guise of collective security against the Soviet threat, the US gained a firm foothold in Europe through Nato, with military bases, troops, and a leading role in strategic decision-making.
 
Trump wants to preserve US hegemony, both in terms of currency and military power, but he wants other countries to fund it. Miran put it clearly: if countries want to enjoy the “geopolitical and financial umbrella” of the US, they will have to pay for it. The threat of tariffs thus becomes a kind of tax on foreign co-operation with the US empire.
 
Trump’s wish list
 
In his speech, Miran formulated five concrete ways in which countries can contribute their “fair share” to US hegemony.
 
First, they can simply accept the import tariffs without taking countermeasures, thereby generating revenue for the Treasury to finance public goods.
 
Second, they can open their markets to US exports and purchase more US-made products.
 
Third, countries are expected to increase their defence spending, but specifically by purchasing weapons and equipment from US companies.
 
Fourth, foreign companies can shift part of their production to the US. This spares them import tariffs and creates jobs in the US.
 
Finally, and most explicitly imperialist, Miran stated that countries can simply write “cheques” to the US Treasury — in the form of long-term bonds (loans), such as 100-year Treasury bonds with low yields, which lose value through inflation, effectively subsidising Washington.
 
In his speech, Miran implicitly acknowledged the existence of the so-called Triffin dilemma: the fundamental conflict whereby a country that issues the world’s reserve currency — in this case, the US — must run a structural trade deficit (import more than it exports) in order to circulate enough dollars for international trade.
 
However, this deficit ultimately undermines the country’s own industrial base. Miran admitted that this role has “decimated” US manufacturing and that the trade deficits have become “unsustainable.”
 
Still, the Trump administration wants to both maintain and reform the system: it wants to continue benefiting from the dominant position of the dollar, while forcing other countries to bear the costs that this dominance entails.
 
China as the enemy
 
Within this plan, China is presented as the primary adversary. According to Miran, Beijing is “the greatest enemy” of the US, and the economic relationship with China constitutes the central battle in the global power struggle.
 
Trump has already imposed tariffs of up to 145 per cent on Chinese goods and wants to decouple US production from that of China. The US wants to develop alternative supply chains with “friendly” countries that, according to Miran, treat US interests “fairly.”
 
Miran claims that countries with large trade surpluses — like China — are weak in a trade war because they depend on exports and on the US market. In his view, the US is stronger because it can replace imports from China either by sourcing from other partner countries or by having goods produced domestically (by foreign companies).
 
According to him, Washington is playing an economic game of chicken with China hoping that Beijing will blink first.
 
Meanwhile, economists warn that ordinary US citizens will end up footing the bill through inflation, while the benefits of this economic confrontation mainly go to the financial and industrial elite — as illustrated by the planned corporate tax cuts.
 
Mar-a-Lago
 
With this, the Trump administration is attempting nothing less than to rewrite the economic foundations of the world order as it emerged after World War II.
 
Since Bretton Woods, the US has shaped the world order to suit its own interests — with the dollar as global currency and Wall Street as the main beneficiary of international capital flows. This hegemony is also supported by an enormous military apparatus, with around 800 foreign bases.
 
Miran and Trump do not want to democratise or share this dominance, but rather outsource its costs and further centralise its benefits within the US.
 
The grand deal Trump hopes to achieve is being called the “Mar-a-Lago Accord.” The term refers to Trump’s luxury resort and echoes the Plaza Accord of 1985, when the Reagan administration forced its allies (Japan, Britain, France, West Germany) to raise the value of their currencies against the dollar.
 
That accord had disastrous consequences for Japan: it led to a massive economic bubble and decades-long economic stagnation. Trump now hopes for similar deals with his allies but is also aiming for broader international compliance. It remains highly uncertain whether countries will allow themselves to be misled again.
 
China, in any case, has already retaliated in kind and will impose import tariffs of up to 125 per cent. In addition, Beijing is launching an alternative to the US-dominated Swift payment system, which could seriously undermine the position of the dollar in the long term.
 
In the next three months, there will be intensive negotiations between the US and the rest of the world that will be decisive for future (trade) relations with the US. But also, in the rest of the world, there will undoubtedly be a great deal of consultation among countries to determine how to best position themselves — jointly or not — in the face of this new and unprecedented aggression from the US.
 
The next 90 days will therefore be very important. The way in which the world will respond to this brutal trade policy of the US will help shape the (economic) world order of the coming decades.
 
Neoconservatives
 
Also important to mention: Miran’s speech took place behind closed doors at the Hudson Institute, a neoconservative think tank in Washington DC, funded by wealthy right-wing donors such as Rupert Murdoch, Charles Schwab, and Harlan Crow.
 
The institute also receives money from multinationals like Meta, AT&T, Chevron, and weapons giants like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman — all actors with a vested interest in a hard-line foreign policy from Washington.
 
Symbolically, four flags waved on stage: those of the US, Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan — all key players in the US geopolitical strategy against China and Russia.
 
It is crystal clear: Trump’s economic plan is openly imperialist, a leverage for forcing other countries to pay for a US-led world order over which those countries themselves have no say.
 
Through tariffs, economic intimidation, and the punishment of those who seek alternatives to the dollar system, the US aims to keep countries submissive. These are typical tactics of a mafia boss.
 
The Mar-a-Lago Accord is, in essence, an attempt to impose economic taxes on the rest of the world — to keep an outdated empire alive at all costs and to provide Trump’s friendly elite with a tax cut.