In a move that will define the second term of the Trump administration, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA) was signed into law on July 4, 2025, after a grueling, party-line battle in Congress. This colossal, nearly 900-page tax and spending package is not merely an adjustment of prior policy but a fundamental realignment of the nation’s fiscal priorities. It codifies a new governing philosophy that champions permanent tax reductions for corporations and individuals, alongside a historic expansion of national security, partially financed through unprecedented cuts to the U.S. social safety net.

For more than fifteen years, the foundational language of capitalism—market prices—has been systematically miswritten. What began in 2008 as emergency life support for a global financial system on the brink of collapse has evolved into a permanent and perilous economic reality. Central banks slashed interest rates to zero and embarked on unprecedented asset‐purchase programs, while governments ran historically large budget deficits. These measures, never fully reversed, were reinforced during the COVID-19 pandemic, creating a world awash in cheap money and saturated with debt. Now, the strain of this policy trajectory is coming into sharp relief: asset values have become untethered from fundamentals, risk is underpriced, and the real economy is starved of dynamism.

A subtle yet significant shift is unfolding in the global financial landscape: China’s methodical reduction of its U.S. Treasury holdings. As of April 2025, Beijing’s official stake in Treasury securities fell to $757 billion, its lowest level in decades and a stark departure from the more than $1.3 trillion peak recorded just over ten years ago.

As the Trump administration crosses its 90-day pause on most tariffs (ex-China), frustration with the global trading order has reached a boiling point. The United States has revealed a growing dissatisfaction with the international trade architecture, especially due to the size of persistent trade deficits. In this context, the provocative analysis of Stephen Miran, presented in the document “A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System,” gains prominence.

It seems tempting for a Treasury faced with a debt of $36.21 trillion and a budget deficit of $1.8 trillion. However, revaluing the United States’ extensive gold reserves to market value would be like opening Pandora’s Box, with repercussions capable of shaking the foundations of the global financial system.

The United States Federal Reserve (the Fed) continues to navigate a political storm whose scope and implications far exceed the usual debate over interest rates. Since Jerome Powell’s appointment in 2017 by President Donald Trump to lead the central bank, the relationship between the White House and the Fed has metamorphosed from an apparent convergence of views into open conflict—marked by caustic criticism, threats of dismissal, and constant challenges to the institution’s independence.

The United States debt ceiling emerged in 1917 as an administrative mechanism to streamline the financing of the war effort, but it has evolved into a political "brinkmanship" instrument that generates anxiety. On January 2, 2025, following the suspension provided for in the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, the limit was redefined at $36.1 trillion, and the US Treasury Department immediately resorted to "extraordinary measures"—accounting tricks that delay, but do not cancel, the exhaustion of maneuvering room until the dreaded "X-Date"—the date on which these maneuvers will be exhausted, and the United States will be left without liquidity to meet its obligations, risking a technical default.

Confronting an aging population, widening economic disparities, geopolitical tensions from a resurgent Russia and an assertive China, the fallout of Brexit, energy and migration pressures, and a revival of nationalist populism that collectively test the political cohesion, strategic autonomy, and long-term stability of the European Union.