The return of ‘the political’ to world politics along Schmittian lines

Translator’s Note: Daniel Hoffmann—the financier renowned for deciphering clandestine sovereign bond purchases within the Eurosystem, thereby unsettling the European Central Bank, and widely recognized for his mastery over the opaque corridors of global finance—interprets contemporary geopolitical fractures through the lens of Carl Schmitt’s “friend-enemy” dichotomy. Hoffmann posits that neoliberal globalization has reached its terminus. He asserts that the Trump administration, via the “Mar-a-Lago Accord” (The Miran Plan), has explicitly militarized foreign trade to avert the collapse of the U.S. dollar and arrest the ascent of China. In this process, the Israel-Iran tension is framed as a strategic “trigger” designed to restructure the global financial system. According to the author, the U.S. effort to escape its staggering $10 trillion debt spiral by branding China an “existential foe” and coercing its allies in Europe and Asia under a security umbrella is driving the world toward a new and potentially explosive “state of exception.” Ultimately, Hoffmann emphasizes that symbolic maneuvers, such as the augmentation of defense budgets and the renaming of departments to the “Ministry of War,” constitute the rhetorical infrastructure of a hegemonic “war for survival.” This article, published in the March issue of Politik Spezial, has been translated from the original German at the author’s request; it is recommended to be read alongside the translator’s annotations.

The Return of “The Political” to World Politics along Schmittian Lines

The Iran War as a “Trigger” for the Execution of the Mar-a-Lago Accord

Daniel Hoffmann

Politik Spezial

March 2026

From Economic Competition to Economic Warfare

As early as the second Obama administration, there was a strategic shift toward the “Pivot to Asia” to counteract China’s rise. The “heated competition” between the U.S. and China that erupted then is now, under the second Trump administration, transforming into an overt political issue—specifically, a “political” matter in the precise sense intended by Carl Schmitt.[1] We are currently experiencing a profound “politicization.” With the Biden administration’s de facto declaration of Russia as an enemy, and the second Trump administration’s subsequent designation of China as such, we are witnessing the politicization and militarization of “world trade,” and consequently, the finality of “neoliberal globalism” in both ideological and practical terms.

In this context, the Iran-Israel war appears poised to serve as a trigger for the implementation of the Miran-Trump Plan, also known as the Mar-a-Lago Accord. The objective of this plan is twofold: to prevent the uncontrolled collapse of the U.S. dollar system and to forestall China’s emergence as a dominant economic and military power.

The “Concept of the Political,” the Identification of the Enemy, and the State of Exception in Carl Schmitt

According to Carl Schmitt’s famous maxim: “Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.”[2] A political entity (specifically the state) must possess the power to decide upon the “state of exception.” This decision-making authority is the very essence of the power to designate the enemy and preserve the community.

“The Political” arises when a group (e.g., a state, nation, or community) defines itself through—and in contrast to—an “enemy.” The enemy here is not a personal adversary, but rather a “public, existential foe” that threatens one’s own existence.[3] Enmity is not mere competition or debate; it is a conflict fraught with violence, possessing the potential to escalate into actual war. The friend-enemy grouping shapes political unity and establishes internal solidarity.

According to Schmitt’s 1932 work, The Concept of the Political, this “friend-enemy distinction” constitutes the specific criterion that categorically separates the political from other domains such as morality, economics, or aesthetics.

“The concepts of friend, enemy, and combat derive their real meaning precisely because they refer to and preserve a real possibility of physical killing. War follows from enmity, for enmity is the ontological negation of another existence.[4] War is only the most extreme manifestation of enmity.”

The “Twelve-Day War” and the Essential Casus Belli for Round Two

With the successive heavy strikes launched by Israel and the U.S. against Iran in June 2025 during the so-called “Twelve-Day War,” such an “ontological negation of another existence” evolved into an actual war that lay dormant until early 2026. But now—as anticipated—following Trump’s Venezuelan coup, the war is entering its second round, primarily as a result of official pressure from Israel.

The violent uprisings that erupted in Iran, incited by a U.S. hybrid financial warfare attack and networks of foreign agents, and their subsequent repressive suppression by Iranian security forces, provide the “morally justified casus belli” essential for Western public opinion—paralleling the precursors to wars in Iraq, Libya, and Syria.

The “Mar-a-Lago Accord” (Miran Plan) – The Bifurcation of the World into Friend and Foe

In November 2024, Prof. Stephen Miran presented an implementation guide for the restructuring of the global trade system, which has now assumed the status of a Handlungsmaxime (maxim for action) for Trump’s endeavor to “Make America Great Again.” By analyzing the U.S. twin deficits arising from the U.S. dollar’s role as the international reserve currency and the associated “Triffin Dilemma,” Miran identifies that a subsequent collapse of the U.S. industrial base would imperil not only national prosperity but existential national security.*

(Author’s Note: The Triffin Dilemma describes the fundamental conflict of objectives faced by a country whose currency serves as a global reserve. To fulfill this role, the currency must be available in vast quantities worldwide. However, this inevitably leads to current account and balance of payments deficits, which ultimately erode confidence in the currency’s sustainability.)

The mission of the plan in this context is: To make America great (and magnificent) again, while “keeping China small.” Accordingly, the following objectives have been declared:

• The aversion of sovereign default and the assurance of war’s financial viability.
• The elimination of the U.S. twin deficits through the “re-industrialization” of the United States.
• The securing of military superiority over the rest of the world, particularly China, Russia, and Iran.

To achieve these goals, the following methods and narratives are envisioned:

• The “militarization” of foreign trade through the distinction between friend and foe.
• The narrative that America is being exploited by the rest of the world. The prosperity of others is possible only because Pax Americana permits it.
• Friends must pay a price for Pax Americana in the future (the 5% “NATO target”); otherwise, they will lose their security umbrella.
• Enemies will be kept “outside” through tariffs, sanctions, etc.
• The aversion of U.S. sovereign default through “burden-sharing.”
• Debt restructuring via 100-year bonds that are interest-free but can be used as collateral with the Federal Reserve (Fed).
• The use of tariffs as a tool to balance “exchange rate misalignments” to compensate for trade imbalances.
• The imposition of 100% punitive tariffs on countries exiting dollarization.

Regarding the consequences and issues arising from the Miran Plan, the text translated into German states:

“Firstly: A much sharper boundary will be drawn between friend, foe, and neutral trading partners. Friends are under the security and economic umbrella, but this involves a stronger burden-sharing. (…) Those outside the security umbrella will also find themselves outside friendly agreements aimed at international trade and easy access to the U.S. consumer. Higher costs will be imposed upon them through tariffs and other measures. This will have obvious effects on asset prices. Secondly: The very threat of withdrawing the security umbrella without burden-sharing will have potentially explosive consequences. (…)”

The new U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) published in November 2025 already articulates these considerations quite clearly. The renaming of the U.S. Department of Defense to the U.S. Department of War completes the rest of the picture.

The $10 Trillion Debt Issue and the Initiation of the Next Phase of the Miran Plan – The Branding of China as an Enemy

Since 2024, the U.S. government has allocated more than $1 trillion to interest payments—a sum exceeding the budgets for security and the military. Furthermore, this occurs against a backdrop of sovereign debt exceeding 120% of GDP, far beyond the 90% sustainability threshold.

After Trump halted Elon Musk’s DOGE savings program, increased the war budget by 50% to approximately $1.5 trillion, and initiated active measures against Russia and China’s allies (including Venezuela and Iran), the U.S. will be forced to restructure more than $9 trillion of its approximately $30 trillion sovereign debt in 2026 and will seek an additional $1 trillion in borrowing.

Against this backdrop, the BRICS nations, led by Russia and China, are now accelerating their de-dollarization efforts. Consequently, it is clear that the time for the next phase of the Miran Plan has arrived—indeed, it is overdue.

To officially brand China an enemy and to unsettle U.S. friends in Europe and Asia enough to submit to the Miran Plan—specifically to the restructuring of U.S. sovereign debt—only a pretext is now required. With Trump’s so-called “Peace Board,” the core for a new “Coalition of the Willing” (Koalition der Willigen) has already been formed.

Trump’s provocation—verging on the resurrection—of an Iranian war (having already dispatched a third carrier strike group to the region) provides an ideal “trigger” for China to be forced to take an overt stand against the U.S. and Israel, lest it lose its next “independent oil supplier” and witness the “sabotage” of its New Silk Road and currency plans.

China—alongside Russia—has supported “U.S. enemy” Iran for years, and since the Twelve-Day War, has been intensively fortifying it with high-tech defense weaponry, rocket fuel, intelligence data, etc.; it is highly probable that Iran would effectively deploy this equipment against the U.S. war machine in a limited conflict.

The ensuing international tensions are likely to produce the expected effect. The increasingly aggressive rhetoric between Japan (Takaichi) and China, as well as between Russia and Germany (Merz) or the remaining NATO countries, already casts the shadows of the approaching storm before us.[5]

(About the Author: Daniel Hoffmann is a financier specializing in accounting, public finance, and monetary theory. He serves as a political consultant in economics, finance, monetary policy, and geopolitics, and is also affiliated with the Institute for Collective Economic Policy (IKW). In his 2015 thesis as a guest researcher, he revealed that certain national central banks within the Eurosystem had been secretly purchasing sovereign bonds on a massive scale for their own accounts under the Agreement on Net Financial Assets (ANFA), which he personally exposed. This disclosure plunged then-ECB President Mario Draghi into a significant crisis of accountability, leading to the revelation of the previously classified agreement.)

[1] “The Political” (Das Politische): In German, everyday pragmatic politics is denoted by the word die Politik; however, Schmitt uses the neuter substantive (das Politische) to construct it as a “domain” or an ontological ground. It is the reduction of the Ancient Greek concept of Polis to an absolute field of existential distinction. Against the parliamentary “chatter” of the Weimar Republic, Schmitt grounds the essence of politics in the “decision” (Decisionism). (Trans. Note)

[2] “Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.”: Original: „Souverän ist, wer über den Ausnahmezustand entscheidet.“ Ausnahme (exception) and Zustand (state/condition). The uncanny void where rules and law are suspended. This is the opening sentence of Political Theology (1922). Schmitt states, “The exception is to jurisprudence what the miracle is to theology.” This concept, also heavily treated in Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer, describes how the modern state establishes a monopoly on violence by suspending the law. (Trans. Note)

[3] “Public, existential foe”: Original: „öffentlicher, existenzieller Gegner“: Hoffmann draws a thick line here between private enmity and public enmity. In interpreting the biblical command (Matthew 5:44) “Love your enemies,” Schmitt argues that the Bible refers to the private enemy (Latin: inimicus, Greek: echthros) and not the public political enemy (Latin: hostis, Greek: polemios). One may not hate the political enemy, yet their existence must be negated. (Trans. Note)

[4] “The ontological negation of another existence”: Original: „seinsmäßige Negierung eines anderen Seins“: The word Sein (Being) is the jugular vein of German philosophy. It is an act of negating the presence of being, orbiting the Heideggerian concept of Dasein. Translating seinsmäßig as “ontological” rather than merely “existential” was essential to carry the heavy philosophical tone (Klang) of post-German Idealism into English. The life of one side is predicated upon the ontological rejection of the other. (Trans. Note)

[5] Current Political Context and “German-Russian” Rhetoric: Original: Rhetorik zwischen (…) Russland und Deutschland (Merz): The mention of “Merz” is not a random parenthetical. It signals that the conservative line occupying the Chancellorship in Germany has shed the relative caution of its predecessor to enter a “Schmittian” friend-enemy polarization within the U.S.-NATO axis, militarizing its rhetoric just as Hoffmann describes. (Trans. Note)