There are few things more dangerous than a leader with a messiah complex armed with a plan. And there are even fewer things more terrifying than a second-term Donald Trump—with a full tank of revenge, a compliant party in both houses and a strategic doctrine that’s already in motion.
That doctrine has a name. It’s “A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System.” Penned by Stephen Miran, a former hedge fund strategist turned Trump’s chief economic ideologue, It is the ideological scaffolding of Trump’s economic nationalism—a playbook to “Make America Great Again”, by making the rest of us kneel.
Miran, now installed as the powerful Chairman of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisors, is no longer whispering into the wind. He is shaping policy. His fingerprints are all over the trade, currency, and fiscal war that Trump is reigniting—not merely against China, but against the entire global economic order as we know it.
In his so-called “User’s Guide”, Miran lays out a brutal, Machiavellian worldview: that the U.S. must use tariffs as economic weapons, that currencies must be manipulated to America’s advantage, and that countries – even allies – who refuse to pay tribute through coercion to buy America first (read: ditch China, or else), turbocharge defence spending or tolerating weaker dollar returns—should be cut loose. In essence, “you’re either with us, or we’ll make you pay.”
The Trumpian playbook, version 2.0, is now executing step by step:
Step 1: Tariffs. Already done. Pain inflicted. Revenue collected. Global trust eroded.
Step 2: Currency manipulation, via the so-called “Mar-a-Lago Accord”. Inspired by Zoltan Poszar, amplified by Miran, and endorsed by Trump’s circle—this is a plot to force trading partners into accepting a weak dollar and low yields on their U.S. Treasury holdings, in exchange for staying under the U.S. security umbrella.
Let’s be clear—this is not about Making America Great Again, but stopping China from becoming great. It’s about making a narrow group of already hyper-wealthy Americans even richer, while keeping the rest of the world—including allies and partners like Malaysia—trapped in a game rigged against us.
Under Trump 1.0, we saw chaos masquerading as strategy. But Trump 2.0 is different. This time, the machinery is ready, the doctrine is written, and the generals—like Miran—are in position. If we in Malaysia, and across ASEAN, continue treating these moves as the mad flailings of a fading superpower, we are gravely mistaken. Miran’s User’s Guide is a clear map, a well written script, and a surgical grade scalpel to butcher the global trade order.
And while Washington’s conventional foreign policy community and many in our own trade and diplomatic corps continue to dismiss these as fringe or dismissable ideas by powerful cantankerous red necks with PhDs, Trump and Miran are reshaping the world outside those gates and is – not even that quietly – putting into action an economically genocidal revolution. The risk is not just to supply chains or export margins. It’s to our sovereignty, our monetary stability, and our economic dignity.
If Trump succeeds, China’s rise will be choked but not snubbed out entirely, with retaliatory capacity that is good for no one, Europe will be humiliated and left hanging dry, and much of the Global South will be economically whipped into submission. Malaysia cannot ride this out. There is no diplomatic neutral gear to coast through what is coming.
We must pivot from complacency to clarity.
We must:
Rewire our economic dependencies, diversify markets, and fortify domestic manufacturing not just for growth, but for resilience. Since US is highly volatile and would be unlikely to return to predictability anytime soon, turbocharge our discussions with China, Russia, Indonesia.
Double down on ASEAN solidarity, to reject false choices between power blocs and instead assert regional agency.
Invest in diplomatic intelligence, not just at Putrajaya but in every Wahington DC, to read beyond the official White House releases and understand the subterranean shifts of Trump-Miran economic ideology and global economics.
Embrace a multilateral order, not out of nostalgia, but out of strategic necessity to avoid economic vassalage.
Let Trump and Miran make their America great—whatever that may mean to them, whatever madness and disruption that guide or misguide them. Our job is to understand, pre-empt, and strategise acvordingly regardless of how wrong or dismissable we think they are.
Our duty is to make Malaysia truly sovereign, resilient, and great in our own right.
Miran’s User’s Guide is their charted path.
We, too, must draw ours. And we must act now.
Howard Lee
MP for Ipoh Timor
