The Art of the Deal: First Order Principles for a WOKE World

The fallout from Trump’s tariffs should’ve been mostly predictable. We’ve been writing about the changing monetary order at Moneybrain for weeks now, you can read more of our thoughts on that here:

• The New Era of Monetary Systems Evolution
• Can DOGE and Crypto Save the Dollar’s Reign?

Yet the sheer scale of the chaos caught markets off guard. Global exchanges spiralled into shock, Taiwan triggered circuit breakers on its stock market, for instance—while nations like Israel slashed all tariffs with the U.S., racing to lock in better trade terms. That upheaval marked a turning point: globalisation’s death.

Uncle Sam finally snapped, fed up with the World Trade Organisation’s push for equity at the expense of ballooning debt for the world’s reserve currency. Here’s the cold truth: those goodwill trade deficits, dressed up as measured moves to boost prosperity, just stacked more red ink on the U.S. dollar, $36 trillion and counting by late 2024. This isn’t just America’s problem; it’s a global reckoning. History proves it, When a reserve currency crumbles, as Ray Dalio puts it:

“History has shown that when an empire’s costs become greater than its revenues, and its reserve currency loses its strength, decline typically follows.

Tariffs are protectionist by nature, a tool for national interests. But when those interests also prop up the world’s reserve currency, keeping it afloat until a natural transition can happen like it has through the eons, they take on bigger weight. Ray Dalio’s framework nails this: the real first-order event is the U.S. dollar’s existential strain—debt, power shifts, all that. Tariffs? They’re second-order, a reaction to that deeper mess. Same with this week’s stock market crash it’s a second-order ripple, smaller than the tariffs but still tied to them in the second order. A shift to crypto as a reserve currency? That’d be first-order, rewiring monetary systems entirely, while the fallout on markets or policy would be second-order effects. This two-tier lens lets us separate what’s truly big from what just feels big.

There exists a great deal of sense within the notion of creating a strong West with a fair and measured trade agreements, Global prosperity must be the goal as we move towards the stars and having a second home planet on Mars but the World Trade Organisation and the apparent abuse has proven that we can only achieve a position of global prosperity through strength and a strong hand on the tiller.

The Western Mentality Virus

Looking through this lens, the stock market crash, though not fully predictable, was a causal domino of the tariffs. It points us forward: what else is at play signalling recovery? Already, countries are chasing trade deals on U.S. terms, aiming to serve their own interests while helping America tackle its deficit. Western economies, widely seen as net winners here, stand to gain. The alternative? China or a coalition of rising nations E.G. BRICS, challenges the dollar as debt balloons, sparking a first-order event that slashes the West’s negotiating power and prosperity overnight. Power would shift to a country with different values, likely funnelling the lion’s share of wealth to nations that align culturally. That’s human nature, psychology at work. The world hasn’t found universal values yet, and WOKE attempts at inclusivity have just fragmented communities infighting instead of strength.

Take China: its people are arguably more united and driven than many in Europe. Asian societies have clocked the WOKE mentality for what it is—a systematic divider, an aggravator, cloaked in overzealous spins on liberty and “living your truth” at the expense of social cohesion. That “truth” often isn’t truth at all, just ugly traits dressed up as authenticity. It externalises, discouraging real truth-tellers while propping up groupthink-backed “truths.” These psychologies mean we fixate not on what builds prosperity and truth, a first-order social mindset but on appearances and self-deception. People chase external fixes to mask unresolved inadequacy, living in a second-order world of fragility, not the actuality of goodness and unitive prosperity.

Western society’s psychology places the importance of outcomes and drivers in the second order, compounding the appetite for further loss of prosperity in a bid to quench the inner human desire to be seen and feel good about themselves. This is ordinary chaos: when society seeks not the actuality of being, but the externalism of appearing to be, it creates a faux mind about what holds importance at the individual level which spirals upward through political pressures and social narratives to become the principles by which the country operates. The first order gets dictated by the drip-feed psychology of the second order, turning a well-observed and successful model on its head and endangering the prosperity of societies that pander to the second order and accept its influence over the more strategic, long-lived first-order principles. This is precisely why nationalism and patriotism are so important they dilute these ideologies with broader, more considered first-order thought, maintaining and replenishing society over time.

Nationalism is a first-order principle, which has been eroded by globalism. Globalism doesn’t have inherent values or at least not inherent values that are understood and absorbed into the psyche in the same way nationalism is. This results in the first-order principles no longer serving as key pillars of guidance for the overarching psyche of a given society, creating a disconnect from self and reality.

What Does This Have to Do with Economics?

Economics hinges on two pillar principles of value: qualitative and quantitative. These pillars help us sift the vital substance from the irrelevant noise, shedding light on psychology’s role in our economies and why the points above are so critical.

The Qualitative

At its core, the economy runs on supply and demand, and demand springs from belief, what do we believe is valuable, why do we think we need it, and what makes us see it as precious? Understanding the psyche of people is key to mapping behaviors and consumer preferences, which drive product demand and belief in value. Take gold: people believe yellow rocks and shiny stones hold worth because history and major economic powers have spun a congruent narrative around them. Gold’s become a status symbol, inherently valuable in our minds. Sure, it conducts in tiny doses for our devices today, but its real worth? That’s a second-order belief, a faith in a commodity, backed by a deep, shared narrative.

The Quantitative

Though economies start with qualitative roots, as they grow into complex machines, quantitative measures take over, dictating value, success, and power. Ray Dalio’s Power Index captures these starkly, laying out a set of metrics that gauge any country’s economic might. This lens sharpens our grasp of the U.S. dollar’s position as the world’s reserve currency and why Trump’s tariff play might make more sense than it first seems. These measures reveal the fiat currency’s global clout, and for the U.S., they stack up like this:

These figures paint a mixed picture: the dollar’s bolstered by massive economic output, a towering financial market, and unmatched military muscle, but it’s hobbled by a almost 1 trillion trade deficit (2024) and a $36 trillion debt burden. This tension explains China’s push to de-dollarize. fearing a trade war where tariffs could choke its hefty U.S. exports. China’s own Power Index numbers show why it’s a contender, yet still trails:

While the U.S. bleeds a $1 trillion north trade deficit, China boasts a surplus of around $1 trillion, fueled by $3.5 trillion in exports, a real threat to dollar dominance. Yet its small but growing 2% reserve status and weaker financial markets keep it chasing the U.S. tail. Trump’s tariff gambit—a 90-day pause, then a revert to 10% for most countries except China shifts the game. China’s now the lone high-tariff target, frozen out while others get a reprieve. Nations once eyeing China as a trade alternative might rethink that play, leaving China ostracised and its Power Index ascent stalled, maybe for decades.

The Role of Nationalism

Institutions will play a key role in ensuring this shift back to a first-order principles psychology, one that cultivates prosperity over idealism, takes hold in the West. Chief among them will be our Royal Family and their sprawling influence across the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, Canada, and the broader world through the Commonwealth. Our King is a great environmental champion, an advocate for equal opportunity through his Prince’s Trust, and a realist, able to separate WOKE groupthink from the existential. The Royal Family of Great Britain is a well-respected and observed institution, meaning they are ideally positioned to advocate a narrative of values that redirects focus inward. In doing so, they disrupt the polarising, self-congratulatory groupthink bands that indulge in issues outside themselves to avoid facing their own flaws.

Nationalism has, throughout history, alongside religion, been the glue that binds societies together so they may prosper under mutual respect and understanding. Though there are always bad actors, overarching values are imperative, for the alternative is what we’ve seen with the WOKE mind virus, which has led the West to this precarious knife-edge of depleting dollar dominance, endangering our position. This rings back to the ancient echoes of the British Monarchy, “Rule, Britannia!”:

“Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.

penned by Scottish poet James Thomson. This indomitable will is what’s been lost across the West, resulting in a “slave-like ideology.” The extrapolation of this lack of nationalism has brought us to the knife-edge we face today, global uncertainty and the need for bold, radical moves to right the ship. For there can be no globalism without one set of overarching guiding principles and values that unite all, speaking to every creed of the world. Absent this, globalism is fragmented and rudderless, curtailing once well-observed national values that built our economies, provided our security and underpinned our communities.

Circling back, this is precisely why the current Trump administration’s pro-America stance is so needed. The U.S., as the world’s biggest power, can bring about a seismic shift, pushing sovereign nations back to nationalism and values that unite and build prosperity. This dismantles the mental hold of the WOKE mind virus, ushering in a new age of self-accountability and introspective examination, provided those overarching values are present, ensuring a country-first mindset that drives a prosperous economy and personal prosperity. Epictetus, the Greek slave-turned-philosopher and Stoic, said it best:

Is our “inclusive society” more likened to freedom or slavery? Is our insistence on focusing on the external an act of virtue, or rather a vice to quench our own illusions of goodness, substantiating a void within us that we choose not to face? For to face oneself is to see the fallibility of one’s position and to understand the imperfect nature of man.