The Trump-Bessent 3-3-3 economic recovery plan

THE 3-3-3 Plan is based on the three principle rule of investment by Ray Dalio, a futurist thinker and investment guru-owner of Bridgewater Associates.

He believes that America’s debt crisis is unsustainable unless budget deficits can be reduced from the current 6% to 7% down to 3%.

If debt issuance is greater than demand, then the bond markets will become reluctant to absorb it causing financial instability in the US economy. While it may seem obvious, the meat is in the details.

Scott Bessent, the new Secretary of Treasury of the United States called it the 3-3-3 plan for economic recovery which will entail cutting the annual budget deficit from 6% to 3% annually; getting real gross domestic product (GDP) growth up to 3% per annum; and producing extra three million barrels of oil per day on top of the current production of 13 million barrels per day.

How Trump will achieve those fiscal and financial goals to stabilise the US economy is why he launched his Liberation Day speech on April 2, 2025.

His plans are firstly, to implement the efficiency department such as the much hyped DOGE headed by Elon Musk, cutting of funds to US Agency for International Development or USAID, attempts to end overseas wars, lower taxes to be partly replaced with tariffs and so forth.

Secondly, in order to get real GDP growth up to 3%, he intends to impose tariffs to encourage manufacturing back to the United States, ramp up arms sales/production to offload the risks of war to other security organisations like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization or Nato.

Thirdly, to bump up oil production with an additional three million barrels per day (mbpd) on top of the 13 mbpd currently.

This is the reason why we believe that it is unlikely that the United States will allow the reconstruction of NordStream 2 to keep Europe dependent on US oil although it will cost the Europeans three times the price, had it continued with the purchase of Russian oil instead.

Impact on Asean economies

Despite the warning signs, Asean is surprisingly caught on the back foot on the tariffs believing that America as an ally would be somehow lenient towards them.

Trump’s usual strategy of “stun and awe” is meant to confuse would-be negotiators from the different countries – both foe and ally.

What is visibly clear is that the huge disparities in the tariff rates are meant to cause further suspicion among Asean countries.

For example, Vietnam is slapped with tariff rates as high as 46% while Singapore is only 10%.

Will it sow some sort of discord among Asean, whose core values and strength these last 50 years had been one founded on centrality, neutrality and very skilled deliberations in the past.

Asean is an old security architecture born out of the Cold War and subsequently, evolved into a formidable trading bloc in the post-Cold War era supported by loose monetary policies and privatisation of national assets.

The 1990’s, before the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) was the “era of exuberance” referring to a low interest rate environment, coupled with waves of trade liberalisation.

At that time, Asean was the very epitome of what a successful model of globalisation looked like, slushed by massive inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI).

Post-AFC, the rise of China only sought to lift Asean prosperity even more, unbridled by the United States which was at that time distracted by its involvement in unending wars in the Middle East.

Thus, Trumpian Economics 2.0 of anti-globalisation will not only be a challenge but could even challenge Asean cohesion.

Already of late, countries like Myanmar and the Philippines have somewhat broken ranks in their stance toward human rights issues for the former and the South China Sea in the case of the latter.

A period of interregnum

“Interregnum” is a gap in a regime which has been described in the book, The New Eurasian Order, by Glenn Diesen, as a time when the old king is dying while the new is yet to be born.

His reference was that the Western hegemony, as we know it, is at breaking point, yet, BRICS is still in its unformed state.

Impact on trade and businesses in Asean

In a period of interregnum, power brokers are known to rise. The era of rules-based order is over, to be replaced by “every man for himself”.

Governments will be forced to pursue economic statecraft instead of economic policies.

The economic goals of things like GDP, inflation rates, employment targets may be replaced with things like trade wars, financial wars or one that is gaining “popularity” is law-fare.

The cohesion of Asean to form a bloc it used to be will surely be tested against the giants of multipolarity.

This means that rules, regulations and principles of respective nations will change according to the respective countries’s confidence in picking the winner. This is what ‘‘globalisation fragmentation” looks like.

This means having intimate knowledge of manipulations of statecraft, local politics and gumption of leaders in the respective countries in which the businesses operate.

People focus on US trade and foreign policies because of the noise it makes, making it easy for one to miss China’s quiet disposition as it absorbs the world’s supply chains.

The 3-3-3 plan clearly indicates that FDI/export strategy are about to end or, at least limited, due to the vast number of countries that Trump will be negotiating with.

Supply chain securitisation may be the way to go, which will require new sets of economic statecraft.

Fui K Soong is the CEO of the Centre for Strategic Engagement. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.