April Market Insights: Bretton Woods 2.0, the New Great Game, and Trump
Here begins the Great Game Download this PDF here. U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term is not just another burst of tariff theatre; it is
March 31, 2026
Our Chief Market Strategist James Thorne gives our team a leading-edge, curating insights from data sources and providing analysis to help our investment advisors select the best possible assets and plans for clients. Jim is a top-industry expert, translating complex economic and market issues and grounding his counsel in historical context to help advisors and investors navigate short-term issues with their potential impact on financial goals. His views consider global economic, political, and financial market events and their short and long-term portfolio implications.
Chief Market Strategist
Prior to joining Wellington-Altus Private Wealth, James Thorne was most recently chief capital market strategist and senior portfolio manager at a leading independent investment management firm.
He also held various senior investment management positions in the U.S., including chief economist of a major U.S. financial institution, chief investment officer of equities, managing director and chief capital market strategist. During his tenure he developed small, mid- and large-capitalization investment strategies, which employed a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis and achieved top-quartile performance.
Dr. Thorne received a Ph.D. in economics in the fields of finance and industrial organization from York University and worked as a professor of economics and finance at the Schulich School of Business and at Bishop’s University. He also regularly appears on BNN and in other media outlets.
Here begins the Great Game Download this PDF here. U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term is not just another burst of tariff theatre; it is
“There’s only two cultures that are going to win in the next year. It’s going to be us or China.” The subtext of Palantir CEO Alex Karp’s widely cited speech from late 2025 sounds like tech‑bro theatre until you reflect on it. In artificial intelligence, there is no bronze medal. There will be a hegemon and a runner‑up. Everyone else will be a client. Markets are not pricing that reality. Investors still treat the AI build-out as marginal cloud spend or another overhyped software cycle. They debate whether Big Tech is “exhausting its available capital” or whether capex “must mean revert,” as if infrastructure were optional and competition courteous. They are using valuation models from the wrong century for the wrong game. AI is not an app store. It is a weapon system—and the operating system of the next industrial era. The capital going into it is not a bubble. It is rearmament.
Historians are likely to regard Donald Trump’s presidency as a pivot—as significant as any in U.S. history comparable to the Jacksonian turn, the New Deal, or the Reagan Revolution. Yet Wall Street remains strangely somnolent, pricing in neither the durability nor the depth of what is unfolding. The Trump Doctrine should be seen as equal to—not subordinate to—the Monroe Doctrine, the 1823 U.S. policy that warned European powers against further colonization or interference in the Western Hemisphere. It represents a new organizing framework for U.S. power that blends hard power, economic nationalism, and pro-growth domestic policy.