Michael Every doesn’t deal in soft landings. When he speaks, it’s with the urgency of a man trying to shake the markets out of their slumber. “There is a complete divorce between where markets are and where the world is right now,” he said, speaking from Thailand in an interview with Adam Taggart’s Thoughtful Money. “We do not live in normal times in terms of politics—and markets still keep trying to pretend we do.”
A Global Strategist at Rabobank, Every has spent over two decades analysing macroeconomic shifts for clients, media, and policymakers. His career spans the Royal Bank of Canada, Silk Road Associates in Bangkok, and Dun & Bradstreet in London. He holds a master’s in economics from University College London and speaks a working amount of Thai.
What follows is a brisk dissection of what he sees as the core disconnect: a financial system stuck in a post-Cold War fantasy, while the political order around it is fragmenting into camps, alliances, and sabre-rattling factions. As Every puts it, borrowing from Gramsci, “The old refuses to die, the new is struggling to be born—and monsters are appearing.”
That opening quote frames Every’s analysis throughout. He returns to the image often, recasting today’s major geopolitical flashpoints as the battlefields of a world being restructured—by force or necessity—into competing blocks. Markets, he believes, are largely unprepared for what’s coming. “Huge volatility ahead,” he says. “And further big shocks to come.”
His method is to return to what he calls “first principles.” In a world of tangled headlines and overlapping crises, he argues that identifying the ideological rules behind decision-making is more useful than following short-term data. “If you don’t understand what game people are playing—what they think they’re allowed to do—you can’t predict their moves.”
At the heart of his analysis is the shift from globalism to mercantilism. The old post-Wall era, Every argues, rested on the illusion that global economic integration would erase national rivalries. The new age has snapped back to something closer to a 19th-century playbook: protectionism, industrial policy, economic blocs. “This isn’t the Star Trek version of history anymore,” he says. “This is Star Wars. Everyone’s building empires.”
The flashpoints are everywhere. Russia’s ambitions in Ukraine, China’s overtures to the Global South, the escalating rhetoric between Iran and Israel—all, to Every, are part of a global reshuffling. “Ukraine is about whether it ends up in the Russian block or the Western one,” he explains. “The same question plays out in South Asia, East Asia, and the Middle East. And in each case, the friction comes from borders—political, economic, ideological—not lining up anymore.”
Even the sudden rift between Donald Trump and Elon Musk fits into this logic. “Trump is a neo-mercantilist—he wants to use state power to shift America’s place in the world. Musk is a radical libertarian. That clash was inevitable.” The market shock, however, wasn’t. Investors, Every believes, keep hoping for normality to reassert itself. It won’t.
He sees something similar in the Financial Times, where BlackRock CEO Larry Fink recently declared the old version of globalisation “over.” Every sees the deeper implications. “If you take Fink at face value, he’s talking about a world with less inequality, fewer trade imbalances, and more local capital. But that would upend currency markets, capital flows, and asset valuations. The change wouldn’t be cosmetic—it would be structural.”
The structural change, of course, favours those who are ready. Every still rates the US as best positioned for the new era, but not because its markets look calm. Quite the opposite. “You can have America achieving a better strategic position—and markets still selling off,” he says. “The S&P and the Dow tumbling again would not mean America is losing the game.”
This game, as he lays it out, is about raw statecraft—using tariffs, capital controls, supply chains, and foreign policy to secure domestic stability and geopolitical leverage. Every describes it as a “fist made from the fingers of industrial, defence, and trade policy”—and warns that unless these tools work together, the effort collapses.
That’s where Trump comes in. Every has mapped his policy trajectory to the mercantilist thinkers of the 19th century—particularly Friedrich List—and argues that Trump, despite his chaotic style, is “box-ticking” the core agenda. “He’s pushed deregulation, tariffs, immigration control. He wants a sovereign wealth fund. He even floated buying Greenland. That’s classic mercantilist thinking.”
Still, implementation matters. “You don’t go to war without stocking up on rare earths first,” Every notes drily. “And you can’t fund Main Street with Wall Street’s rules unless you temporarily use Wall Street against itself.”
That’s why he keeps returning to the idea of a national investment vehicle—call it a sovereign wealth fund or an infrastructure bank—to channel capital towards strategic needs. “Wall Street can take care of the high-return stuff,” he says. “But the national interest may require 3% returns on bridges, ports, and defence manufacturing. That doesn’t happen without state intervention.”
Europe, he says, is starting to see the need. America, with its decentralised finance culture, will take longer—but could get there. “You can either pretend capital will flow magically—or you can build the pipes yourself.”
His real focus, though, is on the geopolitical board. On it, America’s position looks stronger than most think—if it can hold together Team West. “The GCC backing the US over China was huge. Nobody noticed. But Saudi and the UAE saying ‘we’re with Washington’ was a massive win.”
The next test will come from two state visits: between Trump and Xi. Every is sceptical about what can be achieved. “If we’re lucky, we’ll get a new modus vivendi. If not, we get more flux, more shocks. But that’s where the world is.”
He also warns against lazy assumptions. Just because a company is “close to MAGA” doesn’t mean it will benefit. “Mercantilism is about making more things, not more money,” he says. “You might get told: I don’t want you making 30% returns—I want you making more stuff at 5%.”
That, in a sentence, is the mercantilist ethos. The state doesn’t just pull levers—it builds the machine. Investors who mistake it for just another political cycle risk missing the point entirely.
Every’s final advice? Keep calm and carry on. “Everything we’re seeing now has historical precedent. This isn’t unprecedented. It isn’t unknown. And there are paths through it.”
Though none of them, he would add, will be smooth.
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