But on Trump’s “Freedom Day” (April 2, 2025), the rules of global trade are changing: Suddenly, the world’s largest economy is taking advantage of new deals with each of its trading partners. The only country fighting back is China. As the dust settles and global trade routes are rebuilt, many countries may be looking improving their position in the new world order.

Shalett said: “Now we are looking at a situation where, as the world becomes multipolar and China turns around the world and exports disinflation, the rest of the world says, ‘Oh well, suddenly, maybe my central bank has the wind behind it. We have monetary stimulus, and I have to have fiscal’ stimulus because I have to have fiscal stimulus”.

Of course, global defense spending around the world is set to increase. NATO countries have agreed to a US call to increase the percentage of GDP they spend on defense. In the past, NATO countries spent 2% of their GDP on their militaries; which has now increased to 5%.

With the fiscal stimulus box ticked, next comes the question of whether countries can use cheaper goods from China that are no longer preferred by US consumers. Here too, Shalett’s premise seems to be evident: General Administration of Customs of China It reported in January that its exports were very large on a year-on-year basis, increasing by 6.6% in December.

While exports are rising (worth $357 billion), China’s shipments to the US fell 30% in December compared to last year, for the ninth consecutive month—suggesting that foreign countries are actually importing disinflationary goods that used to go to America.

The last remaining piece of the puzzle is an easing monetary policy, where many economies also start in 2025. Last year, as well as the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank continued to cut rates and control them, as did the Bank of England. So are the central banks of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, to name a few. Brazil’s central bank has also recently indicated that it will soon begin an easing cycle.

New leverage

With this in mind, Shalett said countries will increasingly move toward bilateral trade agreements and therefore ask themselves: “What are the cards that I have to play? Each country decides, ‘Hey, actually I can have cards to play.’

“Canada has 90% of the capacity to process uranium, and that is important for nuclear facilities, China has 90% of the capacity of rare earth minerals that are needed in a lot of electronics and battery production, so things like this create opportunities for the rest of the world to have an economic formula that mirrors what the US has done – quote unquote – ‘pull’ in the last 15 years.

That said, “in our humble opinion, having a portfolio that is suddenly more globally balanced seems to make sense to us,” Shalett added. “Our view is that this is a multi-year event that is worth investing in. We don’t see it as a small trade related to a 10% weakening of the dollar, we think it’s a little more complicated than that.”