China plans to employ the full range of its mercantilist policies to achieve its goal: acquiring foreign companies, forcing foreign companies into Chinese partnership, stealing technology, subsidizing publicly owned companies, targeting foreign markets, coordinating public and private investment, and more.
The question is how the U.S. will respond. China's mercantilist policies aren't much different from the policies the U.S. pursued as it developed. Alexander Hamilton's stunning Report on Manufactures helped guide the Republic in its first years.
America's early commitment to public education gave it the advantage of an educated population. Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, built the railroads and founded the land-grant colleges, as part of the "the internal improvements" he argued were vital to the emerging industrial nation.
In 1944, as the end of World War II was in sight, Roosevelt promised an Economic Bill of Rights for all. Eisenhower built the interstate highways and sustained the policies that subsidized the growth of the suburbs. Now, the U.S. has to be clear about its strategy to sustain an economy that works for working people. That requires both an expanded social contract and a modern industrial policy.
Trump's pugnacious indictment of the lies and hypocrisies of our global trade strategies is long overdue. His tariffs open the debate. His negotiators will seek to cut marginally better deals, as they did in the Korean negotiations.
But Trump's administration stands in the way of the fundamental reforms needed to make the U.S. economy work for working people. Progressives need to use this moment to show Americans there are alternatives.
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