By 30 November 2025, Chamath’s Mar‑a‑Lago/Bretton Woods 2.0 scenario has not materialized as he described, but Trump’s tariff policy is still unfolding and retains some features that partially match his thesis, so it’s too early to give a definitive right/wrong verdict.

What has actually happened so far

• Massive, durable tariff regime rather than a completed new system. On 2 April 2025 (“Liberation Day”), Trump imposed a baseline 10% tariff on essentially all U.S. imports plus country‑specific “reciprocal” tariffs of 11–50% on major trading partners, framed as correcting foreign trade barriers. (en.wikipedia.org) After several months of talks, a July 31 executive order locked in new long‑run “reciprocal” tariffs of 10–41% on 69 partners, raising the average effective U.S. tariff rate to about 18.6%—the highest since 1933. (cambridge.org) That looks more like institutionalized protectionism than temporary leverage that disappears once a grand bargain is struck.

• Mar‑a‑Lago Accord exists only as a proposed blueprint, not a realized Bretton Woods‑style order. The “Mar‑a‑Lago Accord” is an internal Trump‑administration initiative and intellectual framework—a plan to use tariffs, currency and capital measures, and security‑linked trade deals to restructure global trade and the dollar system, explicitly drawing inspiration from Bretton Woods and the Plaza Accord. But as of early–mid 2025 it “has not been implemented and remains in the earliest stages of negotiation,” with its success described as highly uncertain. (en.wikipedia.org) Foreign‑policy analyses even deride the concept as “QAnon for tariffs,” underscoring skepticism that it will ever cohere into a true Bretton Woods‑type regime. (en.wikipedia.org) There is no evidence of a signed, multilateral “Mar‑a‑Lago Accords” treaty or a new set of global monetary institutions analogous to the IMF/World Bank system.

• Tariffs have brought countries to the table and produced more explicitly reciprocal deals. This is the part of Chamath’s forecast that is playing out. Facing steep U.S. tariffs, several partners have negotiated “reciprocal, fair, and balanced” frameworks:

  • With the EU, a July 27, 2025 Framework Agreement on Reciprocal, Fair, and Balanced Trade caps U.S. tariffs on EU goods at 15% while eliminating EU tariffs on U.S. industrial goods and granting extra access for U.S. farm and energy exports—explicitly framed around reciprocity. (en.wikipedia.org)
  • With Japan, a major 2025 deal cuts U.S. tariffs on Japanese imports from 35% (Liberation Day levels) to a still‑high 15%, while also eliminating some earlier sector‑specific duties—again, a negotiation visibly triggered by the tariff shock. (us.ibfd.org)
  • Parallel frameworks or negotiations with Vietnam, Thailand, and others likewise condition lower U.S. tariffs on partner commitments to open markets further and align with U.S. security and economic priorities. (jdsupra.com)

• Global system looks more fragmented and conflictual than Bretton‑Woods‑like. The IMF and World Bank warn that Trump’s broad tariffs are already dragging on global growth and accelerating trade fragmentation rather than ushering in a stable new monetary/trade order. (reuters.com) Academic and policy analyses emphasize that the U.S. is stretching existing legal authorities and violating multilateral commitments, not building a consensual successor system. (cambridge.org)

Why this is rated inconclusive

Chamath’s prediction has two core components:

1. Mechanism: tariffs would be used as leverage to drag other countries to the table and force more reciprocal access.
2. End state: this process would culminate in a new, Bretton Woods–style international framework—the Mar‑a‑Lago Accords—rather than leaving high tariffs in place.

Evidence to date supports (1): the Liberation Day tariffs clearly prompted a series of “reciprocal, fair and balanced” bilateral and regional deals in which partners concede market‑access changes under U.S. pressure.

But there is no sign yet that (2) has been achieved. The Mar‑a‑Lago Accord remains a contested, largely domestic blueprint with no implemented global currency agreement or institutional architecture; high tariffs have been broadly locked in, not mostly unwound. At the same time, Trump’s second term is still in its early years, and much of the Mar‑a‑Lago concept explicitly envisions a multi‑year diplomatic process.

Because the strategy is still playing out and a definitive “Bretton Woods 2.0”–style settlement has neither clearly emerged nor been definitively foreclosed, the fairest assessment as of November 2025 is that the prediction’s ultimate success or failure remains inconclusive.