The true agenda may extend far beyond trade. If so, and if successful, Trump’s vision could dismantle the very international order the US helped build after the Second World War — a transformation his team seems not only willing but eager to pursue, as they believe the US will thrive in a less rules-based and more transactional world.

Rumors swirl of a so-called “Mar-a-Lago Accord,” a grand bargain envisioned by the Trump team designed to reshape global finance and trade to America’s overwhelming advantage. Disruption, in this vision, isn’t a side effect; it’s the strategy. Stephen Miran, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, laid out this blueprint in November last year. The plan saw trade disruption as a means to weaken the dollar and thus regain trade balance, without giving up the privilege of a reserve currency. Yet, for now, it remains just talk.

For now, the US appears to be the only party entertaining the idea of a leaders’ summit to work on such a global reset. Japan too vividly remembers the fallout from the Plaza and Louvre accords, which contributed to decades of Japan’s economic stagnation, to engage in another such reset. China, though intrigued by the concept of “major power diplomacy” which Xi Jinping had floated to Barack Obama at California’s Sunnylands estate in 2013, remains wary, having studied in detail those accords and their consequences for Japan and Germany.

Strategic responses: What should be done?

“In a crisis, we must focus on what we can control,” Mark Carney, now Canada’s Prime Minister, said during his campaign for office. That lays out a guiding principle for a global response to “America First,” and it begins with strengthening domestic agendas.