Mr. President,
In Da Nang, Vietnam, in 2017, you set the right framework: fair trade, reciprocal trade, and rules that do not allow one side to exploit the other. You also said that unfair trade undermines us all.
I am writing to you because I believe the same principle must now be applied one level deeper: not only to trade between nations, but to the very architecture of international transactions.
Fair trade requires fair trading. Who does not see that profiteering ruins the marketplace?
The problem is not profit. Profit is legitimate when it corresponds to useful service. The problem begins when profit becomes detached from usefulness. In ordinary business, profiteering destroys trust. In financial markets, it can turn transaction into ambush. In healthcare, when the customer is a patient, excessive exploitation may even become fatal. Few people still milk cows. Too many now slaughter them.
That is why every intermediary must justify its existence.
This is the principle behind my proposal for the supracurrency EL.
EL is not a new national currency. It is not a reserve currency. It is not an asset to be held, accumulated or hoarded. It is not a new monetary master.
EL is designed to do only what is absolutely necessary: to serve transactions between currencies. Nothing more.
The basic structure is simple: Buyer’s Currency (CB) → EL → Seller’s Currency (CS).
The buyer pays in the buyer’s currency. The seller receives in the seller’s currency. EL stands only in the middle, as the neutral and instantaneous reference axis of conversion. No party is left holding EL. No reserve position in EL is created. No country gains the privilege of issuing the currency that stands in the middle.
EL is not a currency to be owned. EL is a monetary axis to be used.
This architecture would also simplify the cash logic of international payments. A transaction would start in the buyer’s currency and end in the seller’s currency. The system would not need to create avoidable chains of settlement, conversion and intermediate balances.
The same architecture would also change the structure of foreign exchange trading. Today, the U.S. dollar is traded against almost every currency. Under EL, the dollar would have one central exchange rate to trade: USD / EL.
The same would apply to every other currency.
The existing labyrinth of currency pairs would be transformed into a central table of currency-to-EL rates. Cross-rates between any two currencies would still exist, but they would be derived through EL.
This matters especially for High Frequency Trading. I am not saying that all speed is abusive. Fast execution, real market making, liquidity provision and price discovery can be useful. Technology must not be rejected when it serves the market. But speed becomes a problem when it stops serving the market and starts exploiting it.
The decisive distinction is this: useful speed versus abusive speed.
If speed improves real execution and liquidity, it can be useful. But if speed becomes a structural unfair advantage over ordinary participants, then the market is no longer a fair field. It becomes a place where some participants are allowed to stand nearer to the trigger.
That is not fair competition. It is privileged positioning. If unfair structural advantage is unacceptable in sports, why should unfair speed advantage be acceptable in markets?
Under an EL-based architecture, useful liquidity would remain visible. Abusive speed advantage would become harder to hide inside the complexity of the current system.
Mr. President,
You already set the framework in Da Nang: unfair trade undermines us all.
I am asking you to see the next step: unfair trading undermines markets themselves.
This proposal is not anti-market. It is a proposal to defend the marketplace from those who profit by damaging it.
It is also not anti-dollar. On the contrary, it can liberate the dollar from a role it should no longer be forced to carry alone: the role of standing in the middle of almost every transaction between third parties.
The dollar should first serve America.
It should not be the unwilling infrastructure of every unnecessary intermediate transaction in the world. Before such a reform becomes a de facto necessity, you can make it a conscious political and economic initiative.
That is the timing advantage.
Please do not take this as flattery. If you do not dare to put such a reform on the table, I do not see it in the dreams or the capabilities of anyone else.
Attached you will find my proposal for the supracurrency EL, together with my note on High Frequency Trading and unfair structural advantage, and my timing argument: why this initiative can serve American leadership, fair global trade and the credibility of markets.
EL for the world.
USD for America.
Fair trading for all.
That is a true America First monetary reform.
Respectfully,
Kostas Tzanavaras
Surveying Engineer – Writer
Corinth, Greece
Attachments:
1. My proposal for the supracurrency EL
2. High Frequency Trading and unfair structural advantage
3.
My timing argument
MY PROPOSAL FOR THE SUPRACURRENCY EL
1. The problem
International trade needs a monetary architecture that serves transactions, not one that allows unnecessary intermediaries to profit from them.
Today, many international transactions still depend on a structure in which one national currency may stand in the middle of exchanges between other currencies. This creates inherited privileges, frictions, risks, avoidable intermediation and opportunities for profit detached from usefulness.
Fair trade requires fair trading.
Every intermediary must justify its existence.
This is the principle behind the supracurrency EL.
2. What EL is
EL is a supracurrency: a currency of currencies.
It is not a new national currency.
It is not a reserve currency.
It is not an asset to be held, accumulated or hoarded.
It is not a new monetary master.
EL is designed to do only what is absolutely necessary: to serve transactions between currencies.
Nothing more.
Its function is simple: Buyer’s Currency (CB) → EL → Seller’s Currency (CS)
or:
CB → EL → CS
The buyer pays in the buyer’s currency.
The seller receives in the seller’s currency.
EL stands only in the middle, as the neutral and instantaneous reference axis of conversion.
3. The special trading mechanism
The whole secret of EL lies in its special mode of trading.
EL must not become a currency that market participants hold. It must function only as the common neutral measure through which currencies are exchanged.
The market should quote only: EL / Currency X
Cross rates between any two currencies are then derived through EL.
A transaction from Currency A to Currency B is executed through two simultaneous EL legs:
* purchase of EL against Currency A;
* sale of EL against Currency B.
The algebraic balance in EL is zero.
No party is left holding EL.
No reserve position in EL is created.
No country gains the privilege of issuing the currency that stands in the middle.
This is the essential distinction:
EL is not a currency to be owned.
EL is a monetary axis to be used.
4. Cash simplification of international transactions
The CB – EL – CS structure also simplifies the cash logic of international payments.
Today, a transaction between a buyer in one currency and a seller in another may pass through a complex monetary chain: intermediate currencies, correspondent banking relations, temporary balances, spreads, fees, settlement risks and the practical dominance of a third currency standing in the middle.
Under EL, the cash logic becomes simpler.
The transaction starts in CB and ends in CS.
The buyer does not need to acquire the seller’s currency in advance.
The seller does not need to receive a third currency and then convert it.
The system does not need to create avoidable chains of settlement and conversion.
EL exists only in the crossing.
It performs only the necessary function: it makes the currency-to-currency transaction possible through a neutral common measure.
5. Concentration of currency trading
The same architecture would change the trading structure of foreign exchange markets.
Today, the U.S. dollar is traded against almost every currency: USD/EUR, USD/JPY, USD/GBP, USD/CHF, USD/CAD, USD/AUD, USD/CNY, USD/MXN and many others.
Under EL, the dollar would have one central exchange rate to trade:
USD / EL
The same would apply to every other currency:
EUR / EL
JPY / EL
GBP / EL
CNY / EL
and so on.
The existing labyrinth of currency pairs would be transformed into a central table of currency-to-EL rates. Cross rates between any two currencies would still exist, but they would be derived through EL.
This concentration would not abolish foreign exchange trading. It would make its useful function clearer.
It would also reduce the complexity on which parasitic high-frequency arbitrage often feeds. Today, High Frequency Trading can exploit tiny timing differences, cross-rate discrepancies and micro-frictions across many currency pairs. In an EL-based architecture, each currency would face one neutral axis. The useful part of trading — liquidity, execution and price discovery — would remain visible. The abusive part would become harder to hide inside the complexity of the current system.
The dollar would no longer need to stand everywhere.
It would stand once, against EL.
6. estEL: the empirical preparation
Before the institutional EL exists,
an empirical approximation can be constructed: estEL.
estEL is not the institutional EL itself; it is a statistical preparation and a
proof-of-concept.
The secret of estEL is not merely the basket of currencies. The secret is the different concept of weights. A conventional basket assigns weights according to economic size, trade shares, political importance or historical convention.
estEL starts from another question:
Which currencies best serve as reliable and universal references for the others?
The weights must therefore be derived from monetary behavior itself: stability, universality and the ability of each currency to contribute to a neutral common reference.
This is not a political basket.
It is not a privilege basket.
It is not a reserve-currency basket.
It is an empirical attempt to approximate impartiality.
7. Expected effects
The first expected effect is transparency.
If all currencies are quoted against EL, cross-currency relations become clearer, more comparable and less dependent on inherited monetary privilege.
The second expected effect is fairness.
No national currency automatically occupies the central position in transactions between third parties.
The third expected effect is reduction of unnecessary intermediation.
EL does not abolish useful intermediaries. It only asks every intermediate function to justify its existence.
The fourth expected effect is protection of the marketplace.
Profit remains legitimate when it corresponds to useful service. Profit detached from usefulness damages the marketplace itself.
The fifth expected effect is strategic timing.
Before such a reform becomes a de facto necessity, it can be introduced as a conscious initiative.
That is the timing advantage.
8. America First monetary reform
This proposal is not anti-dollar.
On the contrary, it can liberate the dollar from a role it should no longer be forced to carry alone: the role of standing in the middle of almost every transaction between third parties.
The dollar should first serve America.
It should not be the unwilling infrastructure of every unnecessary intermediate transaction in the world.
Such a reform would not weaken the dollar. It would restore its primary role.
EL for the world.
USD for America.
Fair trading for all.
That is a true America First monetary reform.
HIGH FREQUENCY TRADING AND UNFAIR STRUCTURAL ADVANTAGE
1. The issue
High Frequency Trading is usually presented as technology serving the market.
In part, this may be true.
Fast execution, market making, liquidity provision and price discovery can be useful functions.
But the essential question is different: When does speed stop serving the market and start exploiting it?
The problem is not technology. The problem is unfair structural advantage.
2. The marketplace principle
A fair marketplace is not a place where nobody profits. Profit is legitimate when it corresponds to useful service.
The real problem begins when profit becomes detached from usefulness.
That is when profiteering ruins the marketplace.
In ordinary business, profiteering destroys trust.
In financial markets, it turns transaction into ambush.
A market participant who invests, produces, imports, exports, hedges or finances real activity enters the market for an economic purpose. A trader who uses superior speed to detect, anticipate or intercept the actions of others may be extracting value from the market without adding corresponding value to it.
This distinction is decisive.
3. Useful speed and abusive speed
Not every fast transaction is abusive. Speed can be useful when it improves execution, reduces real frictions, supports liquidity or helps prices adjust to information. But speed becomes abusive when it functions mainly as a weapon against slower participants.
In that case, the market is no longer a fair field of exchange. It becomes a field where some participants are structurally positioned closer to the event than others.
The issue is not that some are smarter.
The issue is that some are allowed to stand nearer to the trigger.
That is not fair competition. It is privileged positioning.
4. The sports analogy
A simple analogy makes the issue clear. If unfair structural advantage is unacceptable in sports, why should unfair speed advantage be acceptable in markets?
In sports, we understand that competition requires a fair field. In markets, the same principle should apply.
A trader may be more intelligent, better informed, more disciplined or more courageous.
That is legitimate.
But if the decisive advantage is physical proximity, microsecond access, privileged routing or systematic technological interception, then the market must ask a hard question:
What useful service is being provided?
5. The cow principle
A healthy marketplace must be protected from those who destroy the source of their own profit.
Few people still milk cows.
Too many now slaughter them.
This is the difference between sustainable profit and destructive extraction.
A market maker who truly supports liquidity may be milking the cow.
A parasitic speed trader who feeds on tiny structural unfairness may be slaughtering it.
The difference matters.
Markets cannot live indefinitely on trust that they themselves destroy.
6. Why EL matters
The supracurrency EL would not abolish trading. It would make the useful function of trading clearer and the abusive function harder to hide.
Today, foreign exchange markets contain a vast labyrinth of currency pairs, cross-rates, timing differences and micro-frictions. This complexity creates opportunities for high-speed strategies that may profit from tiny discrepancies between related markets.
Under EL, every currency would face one neutral axis:
Currency X / EL
The U.S. dollar would no longer need to be traded against every single currency pair.
It would stand once: USD / EL
The same would apply to every other currency.
Cross-rates would still exist, but they would be derived through EL.
This concentration would reduce the complexity on which parasitic high-frequency arbitrage often feeds.
Useful liquidity would remain visible.
Abusive speed advantage would become harder to hide.
7. The policy question
The policy question is not: Should technology be allowed in markets?
Of course it should.
The real question is: Should markets reward speed advantages that damage trust, fairness and real economic usefulness?
A great market does not fear profit. A great market fears the kind of profit that destroys the marketplace.
High Frequency Trading must therefore be judged by a simple standard:
Does it serve the market, or does it merely exploit the market’s structure?
If it serves, it can stay.
If it exploits, the architecture must change.
MY TIMING ARGUMENT
1. Why now
The present monetary architecture is under increasing pressure.
International trade seeks fairness.
Markets seek credibility.
The dollar carries a role larger than its natural national function.
High Frequency Trading and other forms of structural advantage raise deeper questions about fairness inside markets themselves.
The world is already moving toward alternative payment systems, de-dollarization attempts and regional monetary arrangements.
This means that change may come anyway.
The real question is whether it will come by accident, fragmentation and conflict — or by conscious leadership.
Before reform becomes a de facto necessity, it can still be shaped as a deliberate initiative.
That is the timing advantage.
2. Why the United States
The United States has the strongest reason to lead this reform, precisely because the dollar stands at the center of the current system.
A weaker country could only complain about monetary privilege.
The United States can transform it.
This is the difference between losing a position and redefining it.
The supracurrency EL would not be an attack on the dollar. It would allow the dollar to recover its primary role: America’s national currency.
The dollar would no longer need to stand everywhere.
It would stand once, against EL.
3. Why President Trump
In Da Nang, in 2017, President Trump set the framework of fair and reciprocal trade.
The next step is fair trading.
A monetary reform of this scale requires a political leader who is willing to question inherited arrangements, not merely manage them.
It also requires someone who can speak directly to ordinary producers, workers, farmers, entrepreneurs and taxpayers — people who understand that profiteering ruins the marketplace.
The issue is not technical only.
It is moral, commercial and strategic.
Few people still milk cows. Too many now slaughter them.
A leader who understands that unfair trade undermines us all can also understand that unfair trading undermines markets themselves.
4. The strategic opportunity
If the United States takes the initiative, the reform can be framed positively:
not as de-dollarization,
not as anti-market regulation,
not as a retreat of American leadership,
but as the next architecture of fair global trade.
EL for the world.
USD for America.
Fair trading for all.
This would give the United States the initiative before others impose a fragmented alternative.
It would also support every further American demand for fairness in global trade, finance and market access.
A country that voluntarily proposes a fairer monetary architecture gains moral authority.
A President who dares to put it on the table gains the timing advantage.
That is a true America First monetary reform.
