What is the Mar-a-Lago Accord and why is it getting attention from Wall Street?

On Wall Street, there is talk that Trump's tariffs aim to make the world’s leaders come crawling to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida residence

President Trump Attends Ambassador Meeting In White House Cabinet Room
(Image credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

“To the untrained eye”, Donald Trump’s tariff policy may look like an “incoherent” and “self-destructive mess”, says Rogé Karma in The Atlantic. But some believe it to be “the first step of a carefully orchestrated master plan”. On Wall Street, there is talk that the aim is to make the world’s leaders come crawling to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida residence. There, they will be forced to agree to build factories in the US and strengthen their own currencies to help US manufacturing.

There is a historical precedent for the mooted “Mar-a-Lago accord”, says Gillian Tett in the Financial Times. In 1985, Washington persuaded Japan, Germany, Britain and France to coordinate on devaluing the dollar in the Plaza Accord. There are many barriers to a 2025 repeat, and most economists are dismissive, but investors should understand that the Trump team’s apparently baffling actions are animated by “a potent internal logic”.

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Markets editor

Alex is an investment writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2015. He has been the magazine’s markets editor since 2019. 

Alex has a passion for demystifying the often arcane world of finance for a general readership. While financial media tends to focus compulsively on the latest trend, the best opportunities can lie forgotten elsewhere. 

He is especially interested in European equities – where his fluent French helps him to cover the continent’s largest bourse – and emerging markets, where his experience living in Beijing, and conversational Chinese, prove useful. 

Hailing from Leeds, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He also holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Manchester.