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Daily Missive

The Next Empire Will Be Coded

Loading ...Addison Wiggin

April 9, 2025 • 6 minute, 23 second read


AIChinatariffsTrade war

The Next Empire Will Be Coded

“Artificial intelligence is the future, but we must ensure it is a future that we want.”

– Tim Cook

 

April 9, 2025 — In the late 1970s, the United States opened its doors to China. It was a grand bargain rooted in pragmatism: the West wanted cheap labor, and China wanted access to global markets.

The bet? That economic integration would naturally lead to shared prosperity — and maybe even political liberalization.

For a time, it worked. Factories boomed. American consumers got their $4 toasters. China lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. Wall Street cheered as Beijing’s coastal cities turned into glittering hubs of production and profit.

But beneath that golden surface, cracks were forming. America offshored its industrial base. Fat cats on Wall Street got cheap labor. Today’s “Panicans” got cheap stuff by the container load. Rural towns got fentanyl.

China’s President Xi capitalized and declared to the people, “Getting rich is glorious.” The Communist Party held tight control over its markets — even as it tapped big into Western capital.

Fast forward to 2018. President Donald Trump, channeling decades of pent-up frustration from hollowed-out towns and shuttered plants, declared economic war — not with tanks, but with tariffs. His message was simple: “We’ve been taken advantage of.”

Across the Pacific, President Xi Jinping was navigating a different kind of populism — one built on historical memory and national pride. His “China Dream” wasn’t about appeasing foreign investors. It was about returning China to its rightful place as a global leader — on its own terms.

Thus began the great decoupling.

We’re seeing the setup today, as President Trump raises tariffs on China to 125%, but gives other countries who haven’t announced retaliatory tariffs a reprieve (and as markets get a much-needed oversold bounce, including an unheard-of 10% rally in the Nasdaq this afternoon).

Trump isn’t just resetting the world order, he’s doing so in a way that pits everyone against China, the poster child for getting rich off of globalization while other nations struggle.

Stephen Roach, former Morgan Stanley Asia Chair and one of the few Western economists fluent in both the language and nuance of Chinese policymaking, calls this moment a “clash of saving-impoverished populisms.”

Neither country is in a position of financial strength. America’s household savings rate is near historic lows. We’ve written more than enough about the rising national debt than any child would aspire to in a vision of his future self. The end of the Empire of Debt appears to be nigh. Trump’s trying to negotiate to its peaceful resolution, says he.

At the same time, China is fighting its own debt demons, from real estate busts to youth unemployment, not to mention a declining population, one of the first signs of a long-term decline ahead for a nation.

Rhetoric on both sides? Still chest-thumping. Still full-speed ahead.

And the stakes? Much bigger than iPhone tariffs and electric vehicle parts.

At the center of it all, we’re now watching a high-stakes sprint for control of the 21st century’s most transformative technology: artificial intelligence. AI.

In the U.S., private capital has fueled a surge of innovation. Silicon Valley leads in AI models, chips, and data infrastructure.

But China is catching up fast — armed with centralized planning, enormous data sets, and a population largely comfortable with tech-driven surveillance. And if you listen to the breathless Thomas Friedman in The New York Times, they’re already lightyears ahead.

Trump sees the tariffs as a way to cut China off from the Western capital spigot.

In simplistic terms, the future is not just about who builds the best version of ChatGPT or TikTok.

It’s far more than that. The trade war is about who sets the rules, who owns the supply chains, who trains the engineers, who owns your data, and who controls the values coded into machines that will shape everything from health care to war.

If the 20th century was defined by oil, the 21st will be defined by algorithms.

And yet, both the U.S. and China are fighting this war with one eye on each other, and the other on their domestic audiences.

Trump’s America is about economic revival through repatriation: bring the jobs back, punish the cheaters, strengthen the base. Xi’s China is about stability through strength: contain volatility, project confidence, tighten control.

What gets lost in the middle is cooperation, coordination, and any shared framework for managing the fallout from a fracturing global economy.

Roach says he isn’t a “panda hugger,” per se. We can only take him at his word. We’ve trusted his analysis of the U.S. markets in the past during several of our lengthier research projects.

But Stephen’s issuing a warning based on data — and decades of watching both countries slip further into inward-looking economic nationalism.

Neither side wins if they both continue down this path. And neither side can afford to lose.

All “trade wars are political wars,” Roach warns. “Politicians want you to think otherwise, attempting to rationalize trade aggression through economic arguments.”

On the surface, these arguments are seductive, promising spoils to the winners of trade conflicts through a zero-sum resolution of deeply ingrained economic grievances, But in the end, trade wars are a race to the bottom, with no winners. That is the lesson of the 1930s, and a worrisome portent of what may lie ahead.

So, who writes the rules of AI? Who leads the next era of global trade? Who shapes the narrative of power in a multipolar world?

Unfortunately, the answer might not come from a handshake. At this early stage, it may come from who survives the long-term cost of their populist ambitions.

Stay tuned. The world economy is watching.

Addison Wiggin
Grey Swan

P.S. “We should have delisted Chinese stocks when the Communist Party of China refused to allow Western audits. Can you imagine how much fraud is hiding under those Chinese-reported numbers? The Chinese listed entities in the U.S. are fantasy football shares.”

Kyle Bass is the founder of Hayman Capital and one of the few investors who made a fortune betting against the U.S. housing market before it collapsed in 2008. He’s Grey Swan adjacent, a friend of the network we rely on for our insights.

Today, Bass is laser-focused on transparency in global markets — especially where Western capital meets closed systems. His views on China may be sharp, but they come from a place of fiduciary caution, not ideology. His views will definitely play a significant role in understanding who’s going to blink first among the people’s presidents, Xi or Trump.

As always, send your views to: addison@greyswanfraternity.com. We read them all, and often find them more insightful than the pontificating bigwigs on Wall Street.

P.P.S.:  If you’re a paid-up member of the Grey Swan Investment Fraternity, please join us for a live Zoom call tomorrow, Thursday, April 10, at 11 a.m. Eastern Time.

This week, we’ll take a deeper dive into our model portfolio and how those positions have fared during the global sell-off. (Quick spoiler alert: 15 of 20 positions are up, including all five of our Aggressive Portfolio positions.)

Fraternity members will get the link and password on Thursday morning. Seats are limited. Risk isn’t.

We’re also asking for your best trading ideas. You read that right: we’re throwing the gates wide open and “crowd-sourcing” new trades with you! Bring ‘em on… no ideas are too small.

If you have any suggestions on  new trades or macro ideas we’re missing, please share them here: addison@greyswanfraternity.com.


The Challenge Ahead for Trump’s Crypto Task Force

June 27, 2025 • Ian King

Right now, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are battling over whether certain cryptocurrencies should be classified as securities or commodities.

And there is ongoing debate over whether stablecoins should fall under banking regulations.

The task force needs to ensure that these issues are resolved.

It also needs to ensure that crypto businesses are regulated in a way that allows them to benefit from being decentralized, yet still offers their stakeholders some protections.

And with the IRS increasing scrutiny on crypto transactions, the task force should review tax policies, exemptions and reporting thresholds.

But these issues can be solved with some foresight.

With the proper regulations in place, crypto businesses like Maker and Aave have the potential to truly go mainstream.

And this will solidify Satoshi’s vision of decentralized financial system, built from the ground up. 

The Challenge Ahead for Trump’s Crypto Task Force
America’s Just 12.3% of the Problem

June 27, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

After a spike during the pandemic,  U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio is still over 120% – and climbing again.

Historically, no country that crossed the 130%  debt-to-GDP ratio has been able to survive long enough to “grow its way out” of a debt crisis.

Therein lies the tension. The Trump Reset formula requires an extension of his first-term tax cuts, low and fair tariffs… and low interest rates.

America’s Just 12.3% of the Problem
Wall Street’s Huffing On AI Fumes, Again

June 27, 2025 • Addison Wiggin

It’s fair to say, the market’s resilience isn’t coming from strength in the real economy—it’s running on the fumes of AI exuberance, deregulation promises, and the chance that the Trump administration might delay its July 9 tariff hammer.

Wall Street’s Huffing On AI Fumes, Again
Is Crypto Now a Matter of National Security?

June 26, 2025 • Ian King

The passage of the GENIUS Act is a step in the right direction. It brings much-needed clarity to stablecoins and shows that lawmakers are finally taking digital assets seriously.

But we need to go further.

If we want to control the rails of the coming financial era, then we have to view crypto as part of our national infrastructure.

The U.S. has an opportunity to lead in this space.

But only if we treat the digital realm like a new layer of national power. One that needs to be protected, regulated and defended when necessary.

Otherwise, we could end up on the wrong side of a technology we helped build.

And that would be a loss with consequences far beyond crypto.

Is Crypto Now a Matter of National Security?