Episode 107: The future of the U.S. dollar: dissecting the Mar-a-Lago Accord

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Kevin Headland

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Macan Nia

In the early days of the Trump administration, several unconventional economic policies had been proposed, including tariffs, a return to the gold standard, the elimination of the IRS, and the Mar-A-Lago accord. While tariffs have received significant attention. The Mar-A-Lago accord also has been making headlines, sparking curiosity and questions. Essentially, the Mar-A-Lago accord is inspired by the 1985 Plaza Accord, which was an agreement among five nations to reduce the US trade deficit by weakening the US dollar.

In this episode of Investments Unplugged, we delve into the details of the Mar-A-Lago accord. We explore its purpose, how it compares to the Plaza Court and the likelihood of its implementation. If you're interested in understanding more about this potential policy and its implications, tune in to our deep dive discussion on the topic. Listen on. This is Investments Unplugged.

Macan Nia

Welcome back to Investments Uplugged?
I'm your coast Macan Co chief investment strategist at Manulife investment management. And as always, I'm joined here with by we're with my partner in crime, Kevin Hedland.

Kevin Headland

Thanks, Macan. And did you say Coast or Co host?

Macan Nia

I don't know what I said.
It's it's, I’m tongue-tied, Co-host.
We'll go with Co-host, but how are things Kev?

Kevin Headland

They're good man.
They're good.
Little under the weather, but busy time.
It's what happens when spring happens. You know, kids get a little cold here and there.
And of course, naturally, your parents catch it so, but not too bad. All good.

Macan Nia

Well, just I hope you have enough energy to talk about our discussion for this, this this podcast. And you know, we thought we'd do something.
Maybe a little bit different than we what we typically do.
Typically we talk about global economies, asset classes, and we've been actually getting a lot of questions over the past. Really I'd say 6 to 8 weeks relating to.
A topic that has been floated around called the Mar a Lago.
Accord.
And over the past couple months, there's been a lot of, one would say, unconventional economic policies floated around by the Trump administration.
Were knee deep in tariffs typically unconventional?
There's been talks of overturned to a gold standard, unconventional elimination of the IRS.
Because now we're getting so much tariff revenue, we don't need to, you know, collect revenue or taxes from.
Domestic taxpayers and it's more logo court. Kev is one of those that is unconventional, but it is gaining a lot of headlines because it is extremely.
What's the right word?
I don't want to say extreme, but it is again unconventional.

Kevin Headland

Unconventional. I think that's the best point.
So unconventionally, it's it's look at things in different lands, but also going back to comparing things to some aspects of things that happened before, like the Plaza cord, right.
So there is some kind of relationship there.
So maybe it's unconventional to current views, but it is related to things that might have happened in the past.
So maybe maybe I should go through an let's define what it is, the mar-a-lago accord.

Macan Nia

Yeah, well, let's you know, as we mentioned, it's the Mar-a-lago accord. Let's talk about what it is.
As you mentioned, it's a proposed a blueprint to somewhat kind of recreate what you just mentioned, the 1985 Plaza Accord that was signed and the 1985 Plaza Accord was really designed to correct U.S. trade deficits that were large at that time.
Through a coordinated effort of weakening the US.
Dollar and in the short term, it did weaken the US dollar, but in the medium to long term it did not address the issue of U.S. trade deficits.
Fast forward 4 decades later, we are still discussing U.S. trade deficits, but in a nutshell, the Mar-a-lago Accord is basically a blueprint of the Plaza Accord and really the Plaza Accord was multilateral.
Multilateral effort between the US.
Japan, West Germany, France and I'm gonna mess with no the UK.
And it was done by currency intervention by these 5 central banks also with fiscal adjustments, all with the goal of bringing down the USD to address the US deficits.

Kevin Headland

Yeah, it's, it's interesting.
Anyway, looking back at the currency back then, if you look at just the dxy, so the general index basket of goods of the US dollars is marked against going back to that period. The Dxy actually hit a peak of 150.
Now it's roughly 100, so it actually is very at a similar level as was Post Plaza core, which is kind of interesting. But one of the things we also witnessed back then was.
You talked with G5.
That was, you know, the five biggest countries.
Coordinating to.
Change their central bank policy to lower the US dollar rather to their currencies.
You don't have that same control today as we had before, which is kind of interesting as well.
And you also have now China, which is a much bigger player than of course it was in the 80s.

Macan Nia

Well, let's we'll get to that.
Why we don't think it's likely to happen, and even if it were to happen, it's unlikely to result in anything fruitful.
But fun fact, Kev, the 1985 Plaza Accord was signed on the same day that President Trump bought Mar a Lago back in 1985.

Kevin Headland

Actually owned Plaza for a while too.

Macan Nia

Yeah. So and I think the key thing here is there is a paper and a lot of, let's call them financial nerds.

Kevin Headland

Yeah.

Macan Nia

We're paying attention to this early on in the year.
This one individual, Steven Mirren and Steven Mirren wrote. Really along like a white paper called a user guide to restructuring global trade systems. I try. I took a stab Kev at it to read it. 40 pages.

Kevin Headland

Me too.

Macan Nia

It is extremely lack of better word boring.
So I took my friendly ChatGPT, put it in there and told me.
Told it to give me a summary of what it is and ultimately as we said, the thesis is U.S. trade deficits like according to Steven Mirren, U.S. trade deficits are a result of a strong U.S. dollar which is driven by global demand of the reserve currency, the US.

Kevin Headland

Oh.
Great idea.

Macan Nia

Dollar.
And that's his premise.
Now we'll talk about why that's probably not the case.
But he why? Stephen Miran born today?
Because right now he wrote this piece before he got this position, but now he's the chair of the what is it called? The chair of the Council of Economic Advisors.

Kevin Headland

And that's why it's become.

Macan Nia

So it's a very important important group.

Kevin Headland

And that's why it's kind of surfaced to mainstream media perhaps or or at least getting much more play.
But here's enough of Macan. I don't know if you're you're che.
Review came from this the actual Mar-a-lago Accord phrase or term, was actually coined by US money market wizard and previous credit Swiss strategist Zoltan Polzar.
Back in June, back in June 2024.

Macan Nia

He's a.
He's a part of the account Council too, no?

Kevin Headland

I don't know.
I didn't search that up, but I saw that in somebody's reading.
So it's kind of funny how that is linked to the eventual White paper that was created.

Macan Nia

I think he is because he has such a unique name.
That's why Zolte and I remember.
Yeah, anyways.

Kevin Headland

Yeah. Sorry, sorry.

Macan Nia

Doesn't matter, but you know.

Kevin Headland

One other, Zoltan, we we all know of, right?

Macan Nia

Don't mess with. Oh, that's a zolten. That's Latin.

Kevin Headland

Soccer player is it?
Oh, is it?
I thought it was Alton.

Macan Nia

No, it's zed LATAN.
Anyway, sweet De Grasse, OK.

Kevin Headland

Yeah

Macan Nia

So let's talk about the facts and then we'll get to why we don't think this is going to probably see the light of day.
I know there's been a lot of emphasis from the Trump administration on US goods trade deficit recently.
The reality is they've had a they've had a trade deficit with goods.
For the last 50 years, this is not a new phenomenon.
And when you look at the good trade deficits, it's nothing crazy.
It's only 4% deficit to GDP. It's been higher historically when you factor in the US actually has a service surplus with the rest of the world of plus 1%.
So net, net, when you look at services and goods, they're still in a deficit of 3%, but nothing crazy.
It's not with China.
So five years ago, half of the goods deficit.
Was with China today.
It's a quarter, but now it's going to get interesting.
So China, Mexico, Vietnam account for basically half of the goods U.S. trade deficit today.
So you can see China's reduction in goods trade deficit has come on the backs of Vietnam, increasing their trade deficit.

Kevin Headland

Yeah.

Macan Nia

So the whole point of the Trump administration, that they're offshoring some of the exports from China to, you know, pseudo Vietnam.
One for one and the goods trade.
This goes back to why?
I don't think this is gonna work, and it's not.
It's not reserves and I go into the details 'cause, we're gonna late save it to the end. 70% of the goods trades deficit is in consumer goods.

Kevin Headland

Electronics.

Macan Nia

And it's not it's electronics.
It you know what, Kev?

Kevin Headland

Close.

Macan Nia

It's not.
Not mainly like it depends on the area, so they have an issue with Europe, with the trade deficit goods trade deficit.

Kevin Headland

Yeah.

Macan Nia

What's the primary driver of that in Europe?
It's pharmaceuticals. They have a trade deficit in goods with China.
What's the primary driver of that? As you said, Kevin Electronics, they have one with Mexico.
What's the primary driver of that?
It's cars.
So when you look at the goods and these trade deficits, these are going back to what we've discussed about this is from a position of strength from our perspective where you have an extremely rich country, the richest country in the world and they're buying goods.
From the rest of the world that they don't have.
Have you know specialization in?

Kevin Headland

That is, when you talk about the 4% GDP trade deficit, if you add services which have a trade surplus with services actually decrease that to 3% and I don't.

Macan Nia

Yeah.

Kevin Headland

We talk about goods so much, but actually they're more and more.
You think about technology that becomes a service and that's actually one where the US actually has strengthened. And when you think about the the changing landscape over last 40 years.
From manufacturing perspective, it's been a natural migration to the lowest cost.
Producer and lowest cost to become wages as we know wages are the dominant factor from a cost perspective.

Macan Nia

Yeah.

Kevin Headland

And if wages go up in a certain country, naturally companies are going to look for the lowest cost provider to make sure they protect their margins in terms of that, that product and make sure the product remains affordable. You know, if you go and ask someone today would.
You rather pay, you know, $10 or something or $5 for something.
Given the quality of essentially the same, maybe I think the majority would say.
I'll buy the $5 one right, regardless of where it's produced.

Macan Nia

Yeah. And I always question whether I look at myself, unpatriotic, more than like I'm patriotic.
But if it came to by Canada and it was at the expense of an increase of 40% or 30% or whatever, that price increase is is to be, I'll show my patriotism through other things than what I purchase if it. If it makes as a result.

Kevin Headland

Makes you think, right?

Macan Nia

Of material higher price.
So why?

Kevin Headland

Sorry, just go back to that Makhan before that as well as you know you you're you in a position where you might be able to take on that 4% increase. But we look at the average consumer in perhaps the US or even Canada, the average consumer doesn.
Have the the available disposable income to perhaps assume that higher price.
Either that actually has also impacted in terms of just the affordability for the average consumer in these countries.

Macan Nia

Yeah. And it'll be interesting headline this morning.
Walmart's earnings resilient, but they came out and said that they're likely going to be increasing prices because of tariffs. By the end of the month or early June.

Kevin Headland

Hmm.

Macan Nia

So we are I think going to start beginning to see the impacts of tariff uncertainty.
So why it won't likely work?
Why the marlago accord?
Is unlikely to yield the results that the Plaza Corps did, and one could even argue whether Plaza Corp.
Even yielded the ultimate results they wanted is the first one.
It has to be a coordinated effort like we talked about how those five countries came out and they had a coordinated effort to reduce or to decline or to, you know, bring down the US dollar.
So there's many ways of doing it.
One is selling your treasuries right?
So when I look at the top six or let's say top five holders of U.S. Treasuries.
So overall.
There's $36 trillion of U.S. Treasuries out there.
The top five holders, Japan 1.1 trillion, China .8 UK 750. These next four are funny Kev, Cayman Islands, 400 billion.
Which one is this one?
I think this is Lichis line 400 billion and in Canada actually six with 400 billion.
So you talk about those hedge funds being an offshore accounts at all big treasures. You have a almost a trillion dollars of U.S. Treasuries.
It's safe haven tax havens, but going back to the coordinated effort.

Kevin Headland

First, go back to that really quickly, just on the on the treasuries. It's interesting as I think a lot of individuals might think that the majority of actually ownership of foreign treasuries is foreign owned. And actually, it's not only a third of the US Treasury's outstanding are.

Macan Nia

What? Yeah, it goes.

Kevin Headland

Currently foreign owned, so even then you know there's there's a MIS, perhaps a nomur from that perspective.

Macan Nia

Yeah. So you're forcing institutions.
Asset managers, whoever owns treasuries, banks to get involved.

Kevin Headland

Maybe.

Macan Nia

Now that becomes, it just becomes much more convoluted and messy.
But I go back OK.
It has to be a unified effort, multilateral #1 given the let's call it volatility, uncertainty that the Trump administration has caused. If you or anyone of these allies, why are you going out of your way?
Way to dump treasuries to support.
Maybe a policy which could be changed week to week, month to month, right?
Like that's one challenge today is you know with this these *** for tat disputes, it's created a sense of.
Lack not lack of trust, but unease in terms of what the policy will be in place. And I, Kev, I just go back to what is in China's like, what is in China's.

Kevin Headland

Yeah.

Macan Nia

This effort to reduce the US dollar while increasing the renminbi. They are export driven that does not benefit their economy.
So right off the bat, I look at China, even Japan, OK, the US potentially gets this benefit.
What do they get out of it?

Kevin Headland

Yeah. I think one of the things is is obviously it's got to be quid pro quo.
It's got to be in a negotiation.
You have to.
Everyone has to think they're getting something out of the negotiation and and and part of Steve Moran's actually white paper was talking about the benefit of tariffs.

Macan Nia

100%.

Kevin Headland

I mean, that's perhaps one of the, you know, proponents of right now the tariff negotiations would be perhaps talking about something to do with the US dollar.
What I'm reading recently is that has not come up at all in the negotiations.
With any of the countries right now, so not even talk. The fact of talk about the dollar, talk about that.

Macan Nia

What? What hasn't come up?

Kevin Headland

You know, if you will decrease your tariffs, if you help us decrease the currency, whereas against them Iran's post was talked or swiped was talking about using tariffs as leverage to help them or get other countries to do what the US would want would be decreasing the.

Macan Nia

Again.

Kevin Headland

U.S. dollars so.
That was one of the ways to use the negotiation tactics.
Right. Because there again there has to be a reason why I'm gonna help you.
And as you said it, it's not in this in the country's best interest in terms of you know decreasing currencies of a trade partner.

Macan Nia

Yeah. So the challenge again with this Mar-a-lago potential is in 1985, there was a multilateral agreement by central banks, central banks.
Today, Kev, they don't.
They don't get involved in currency like they used to, unless it's unless it's tail end wrist.

Kevin Headland

Direct, yeah.

Macan Nia

Great financial crisis. Like if there's big potential shocks or shocks to the system, central banks get involved.

Kevin Headland

Yeah.

Macan Nia

But today, Fast forward central banks do not get involved in currency like they did back in 1985.
So that's one challenge.
And then how do you not create volatility?
On the ease, like if all of a sudden the talk is we're going to switch the terms of your treasuries to something more extended like, these are not just things. You float out there like the semantics of it are extremely complicated.
And Steven Mirren, even in his piece.
Outside of the, you know, the Cha Chi PTI.
I did read some of it.
He he he highlighted how these are potential tools, but he also is very quick to recognize that the implementation of it may not be as easy as writing a white paper about it.
So that's the challenge. And so one way in his paper he talked about is a unilateral approach. And I find this is really interesting is to charge a fee.

Kevin Headland

Yeah.

Macan Nia

On those foreign governments that.
Hold U.S. Treasuries.
Basically a tax. OK, Kev. Your country, Kevin, and you hold U.S. Treasuries.
I'm going to I'm the US government.
I'm going to tax you for the right of holding U.S. Treasuries and how that tax may look because this you could implement pretty easily is let's say I'm promising to pay you 3%.

Kevin Headland

Yep.

Macan Nia

Well, I'm going to take .1% of that as a fee of you holding it and again, going back to his and I think this is.
The not danger, but maybe the oversight of this is.
The whole premise of Steven Mirren is that there's such a desire, insatiable appetite for U.S. Treasuries from US governments, or sorry foreign governments that they don't care if there's a .1% fee, for example.

Kevin Headland

Yeah.

Macan Nia

They need to hold these, and there's basically an inelastic demand.
Of really an elastic demand for U.S. Treasuries doesn't matter what the price is.

Kevin Headland

Was the case, I think the.
Yields would be much lower across the US Treasury curve. For example, 10 year treasury yields.
I believe the fixing a market is the most efficient market out there.
There's actually talk about the supply demand issues where the US is going to have to actually increase.
Issuing issuance of treasuries to finance some of the spending they're going to have, and that's why perhaps just talk about the US Treasury's going higher.
It doesn't matter for me if you have. If you're issuing debt.
At some yield at some coupon the there's someone's gonna lend you that money, or someone's gonna buy that debt.
And I think if you were, you know, a sensational demand for U.S. Treasuries and it's the best thing ever, yields are much lower because the government, the US government, would not have to pay higher yields to get people to buy, you know, lend them money. So I think.
That's that's a big issue there. You know, we used to have Tina remember Tina.
There is no alternative where you had global government debt was negative yielding Japan jgb's were negative, yielding us was kind of the only thing out there was.

Macan Nia

Yeah.

Kevin Headland

There was no alternative.
Now there is alternatives, and I you're noticing that especially now where you're getting a lot of safe haven trades where individuals rather than going to U.S. Treasuries during the uncertainty or U.S. dollar during this uncertainty, they're going elsewhere.
They're going to Japan and Vien and Japanese.
Government bonds going.

Macan Nia

Jeremy boone's.

Kevin Headland

German Boone's going to Swiss. You know, it's interesting.
Where the Swiss government?
The Swiss Bank Central bank excuse me, is talking about reducing rates to lower their currency impact because there's been such demand for their their currency in the safe haven trade.
It's actually hurting their own economy, so there's a lot more choice out there than perhaps there was in the in the 80s.

Macan Nia

Yeah. And I think ultimately the deficit is the result of, you know, domestic spending, right?
Government spending, you had major tax cuts in the 80s, 2002, 1010.
You had the great financial crisis.
You had COVID which added to the deficit.
Personally, I don't think it's from a position that US or foreign central banks or governments.
Have to hold U.S. Treasuries and as a result it has made the US dollar stronger.
And then work the deficit.
I just think it's supply demand and the US consumes from a position of strength.
More than it consumes.
More than it sells to the rest of the world.
So in a nutshell, I believe that the odds as Marlo go accord going into fruition or actually following through through is a very, very low probability event. I'd put at less than 10% just from the fact that it just needs to be multilateral.

Kevin Headland

Yeah.

Macan Nia

And because of that, and because China is involved, they're not going to want to do that.

Kevin Headland

The other aspect of this is not necessarily the Marlow court. For me, it's the idea that there's potential to look outside the purview box to find ways to improve the domestic economy with the US and whether it's tariffs or whether it's trying to get manufacturing back to the.
Us.
You're seeing some companies already talking about building factories and building plants in in the US and and great.
Maybe it's great deal and but ultimately when you look at.
The efficient market.
Markets and and capitalism companies are going to go to areas where they're going to have the best, you know, the cheapest production and best output and effectively protect their margin because that's their their main business.
So that becomes the ultimate decision and I think that's important.

Macan Nia

And before we move on to the next state, it's yes, you're right.
It's the lowest cost of production, but it's also the availability of skilled talent.
So Tim, Pluck the CEO of Apple, has come out repeatedly and has highlighted why they have production in China.

Kevin Headland

Other yeah, for sure.

Macan Nia

What was first wages a decade plus ago is no longer wages because wages have increased in China.
Why they have plants in China?

Kevin Headland

Yeah.

Macan Nia

Is the access to hundreds of thousands of skilled.
Ield laborers that speak English, and he's like, we can't find that in the rest of the world.
So that's one reason is not only the cost of Labor, but one can argue the cost of Labor in China has gone gone up.
It's the availability of skilled talent. So that's transitioned to the next topic and that is the kind of works on.
This is the potential for the US dollar to lose its status.
As the as the world's reserve.
Currency.

Kevin Headland

Yeah, that's been again.
That's a question I've been getting.
I was just at a conference actually in the US speaking there and a lot of talk, a lot of questions.
I received both through my panel and you know sidebars about the US dollar.
You know, Americans are hearing this from elsewhere, and it's quite interesting to me when you look at the idea of losing the currency as a lot of talk about de dollarization this notion that there's conspiracy theories about the BRIC countries or Brazil, Russia, India, China is the the term.
Coin for essentially emerging markets.
Come together and.
Getting rid of the US dollar as its reserve currency globally, and I believe that's the case, I don't see that I'm not a big believer in conspiracy theories. What we are seeing though is countries like China and Brazil, for example, trading directly with each other and using each.
Other's currency and not needing the US dollar as a mechanism for for trade. And I think that is actually not a negative actually about positive for globalization.
Global trade. It means that now these countries have confidence in.
The currencies to be able to trade within them and we're going to quote UN quote that the parent of the US dollar to use that treasuries and we look at actually the swift.
It's a mechanism to track foreign trade. You're looking at, well, just about 50% of transactions in U.S. dollars. So it's not as high as a lot of people have thought.

Macan Nia

Yeah.

Kevin Headland

It's come down.
It's not going down much lower.
It's still very high actually. If you look at, that's actually in foreign transactions directly. But still I think almost 90% or 85% of.
Foreign trade globally touches at certain part of the US dollar, so that even that the ability to think about who's who's up next, who's next currency to reserve, there's nobody close in line that could actually just replace it tomorrow, right?

Macan Nia

It would be the euro, but like, it's not even, I think with when I no, I'm not disputing that, but that's what I mean is, what's the alternative?

Kevin Headland

The Earl's had his own problems.
Yeah.

Macan Nia

And.
When I look at it is do I believe the US dollar is gonna lose this reserve status in my lifetime?
I think the odds again are low.
Is the share of global currency.
Utilized or whatever on a daily basis, is that going to decrease?
Absolutely. That's going to decrease.

Kevin Headland

It's already out.

Macan Nia

It already has.
But to lose this reserve currency, why does the US have the reserve currency status right?
Like #1 rule of law, right?
Like I know there's some might push back and say that may be changing at the margin, but for those big transformational rule of law changes, I don't see them happening.
Rule of law. Education level, right?
You have seven of the top 10 universities in the world out of the US.
Why is that important?
Because they're pumping out the Facebooks, the Googles, the alphabets, they're pumping out the next companies that will be creating something, paying tax revenue.
Global trade is done in U.S. dollars, so as long as the US consumer is the strongest consumer in the world.
Usus dollar is gonna be a part of that global trade.
It's a part of the commodity trade. The structure in place today is to use the US dollar.
So I don't. Also other countries are pegged right like they're minor countries can have, but like 50 countries in the world.

Kevin Headland

Yeah.

Macan Nia

Use hold U.S. dollars as a peg.
Are they gonna hold Chinese renminbi?
Are they gonna hold euro for that?
Probably not. The big one is international trade. And as you said, what is my alternative if I'm? I'm gonna start trading in renminbi.
I'm going to start trading in euros over us. Like are they that much more attractive? Absolutely not.
So I think what investors have done is they've looked at a decrease in the percentage of U.S. dollars global in terms of everything and they've equated it as the demise of the US dollar as a reserve currency. And I think that's a little bit short sighted is yes.

Kevin Headland

Yeah.

Macan Nia

It's going to decrease in terms of its overall.
But that being said, it's unlikely to lose its reserve currency because you know why, Cav.
There has to be a there has to be an alternative.

Kevin Headland

Replacement, yeah.

Macan Nia

There has to be a replacement, and right now I don't see a replacement.

Kevin Headland

Yeah, it could be.
You know one point, maybe a digital currency or one even if you look at the IMF, they have the special reserve, you know, Korean baskets of currencies, maybe as a whole to try and you know weight different ones. But almost 60% of global foreign exchange reserves are.
Still, U.S. dollars.
So just the the basket that got in the countries use as their support mechanism would be gold is still is now U.S. dollars.
You know, that's the fact of currency, so.
I agree with you.
I think the idea is just people have seen this lowering of it.
And it just this pendulum swung towards this notion that, OK, it's decreasing.
So it's essentially going to go to zero and and that's not necessarily the case.

Macan Nia

I think the fear is Kev is some investors are very concerned about the Trump administration and potential policies, and they're concerned that those policies will destroy the US economy, U.S. dollar.
And I think what we've seen in the last really since Liberation Day is they're very mindful of what's happening in capital markets and any policy that they put out that's unconventional IE tariffs. And if there's blowback on it, they've been very quick to.

Kevin Headland

1%.

Macan Nia

Take a step back.
Delay tariffs another day, 90 days.
Not implement anything, so I think the capital markets are a wonderful neutralizer of unconventional policies that they don't like.
And you've seen that you've seen the results where they step back on a lot of the things as we were expecting.
So in a nutshell, Moralgo accord unlikely to see the light of day because you just need multilateral agreement by countries that are right now a little bit at odds.
And then the other one, U.S. dollar, I've kept, I feel like this is a question we've been addressing for the last two decades.

Kevin Headland

Oh, my God. Yeah.

Macan Nia

So it goes in.
It's just like I hate to say the least, but you know it's those.
It's it's like a. It's like a cycle.
Oh, we're going to win the cup.
Oh, we're off. We're winning.
And then boom, inevitably, it comes back down.
And you same with the US dollar, it's going to lose its reserve currency status.
No, it's back.
It's just a cycle.

Kevin Headland

Yeah, it's just you said back, you know, I think maybe some investors or especially outside of the US think there's perhaps a, you know, a risk of, you know, destroying the economy as I think you said all the Trump administration policies are actually.
Targeted to actually improve the economy. So if there were something evidence of a reduction, destruction or a risk to the economy, obviously that's not a good thing, right?
So when you think about that, you know, I think that these things rationally that's I come back to.
I'm a rational thinker.
Let's step back and think.
Think things rationally.
Say yes in certain aspects there you know at less strong and I say weak, but less strong dominant U.S. dollar is probably a good thing globally and I think that's what's trying to achieve right now. But ultimately all economies want to do be doing well and that's why.
I think you know the scoring effort is going to be difficult and and just look at rationally and see these implementations of these policies.
Is unlikely to come together, but it makes interesting conversation as we get all these questions.
About it and it's just another topic that comes up that we have to.
Investigate research and have a a good rebuttal or or comment too.

Macan Nia

Yeah, this is one of those things that I like about.
Our job is in any given year, there's gonna be a topic that is completely brand new and you have to learn about it and try to take, you know.

Kevin Headland

Given year given year, given day.

Macan Nia

You know a contacts in terms of investors, so I know we've been getting a lot of questions on Mar a Lago and we thought we'd do a podcast 'cause. We didn't know much about it either in terms of the nitty gritty and you know made us pull up.
Our socks and with the help of ChatGPT and.
Learn a little bit more.
But yeah, so in a nutshell headline driven unlikely to result in anything in a nutshell.

Kevin Headland

Yeah, but I was just saying one back to getting.
It's interesting now and people are thinking about. It just makes U.S. Open to perhaps looking at things from different lens, different angle, looking at different data sets, you know, things we fall before might not be the drivers of our viewpoints going forward.
So it actually helps us and it kind of reset and look at things from a different way and and perhaps the things we've looked at in the past are not necessarily the things we have to look at going forward, so.
These are these are great questions.
Great comments that we received and again as you said, it makes us.
Dig a little deeper, which is also important for us to say sharp.

Macan Nia

I think that's a good place to pause, Kev. Or at the 30 minute mark roughly. So want to thank everyone for listening in. If you find these podcasts of use or are helpful, please rate us. It helps us, you know, to increase our distribution to very like minded individ.
Like yourself again.
Thank you for listening in and I think that's a good place to say goodbye.
My name is Macan NIA.

Kevin Headland

And Kevin, Helen.

Macan Nia

Thank you for for listening in.
Take care.

Kevin Headland

Have a good one.

Macan Nia

Bye.