Why construction projects are over budget and late—and how to fix them
April 2, 2024The construction industry is deeply broken. To address the problem, we need to prioritize operations management and focus on production instead of administration.
Cooperate or Compete? The Zero-Sum Game of AI Engagement with China
March 26, 2024The United States and China have reportedly reached an agreement to extend the decades-long cooperative framework of the US-China Science and Technology Agreement. That recent move follows Biden [...]
COMAC Comes to Europe: strategic implications of the commercial aerospace battleground
January 11, 2024China co-opted and conquered foreign solar energy and high-speed rail players. Will incumbent aerospace giants fall for the same playbook and spell their own disruption? The question is an existential one, and Western incumbents' survival hinges on weaning off the Chinese market and ceasing cooperation with Chinese players.
The US national innovation base has critical weaknesses. Just look at Starlink.
September 1, 2023To compete with China, the US needs a robust industrial and innovation base, able to withstand attacks on the battlefield and the factory floor. Real American dynamism – and real competitive advantage – stem from credible and sustainable power. Starlink's, and more broadly Elon Musk's, dependence on China underscore the vulnerabilities in current US national defense strategy.
Indium phosphide could be critical to China’s semiconductor ambitions
July 26, 2023Gallium and germanium have stolen the headlines. But indium phosphide warrants attention, too. China is eyeing the compound semiconductor material as an opportunity to shake off dependence on foreign semiconductor technology, and in turn a point of leverage over global semiconductor supply chains.
How Canada Can Take Back Manufacturing
July 11, 2023Canada's manufacturing trade deficit has ballooned in the past four decades. It has an ailing resource sector and a hollowed-out manufacturing base. This essay, adapted from Nigel Southway's new book, "Take Back Manufacturing," proposes a road map for rebuilding Canada's manufacturing sector.
Reshoring Rides the EV Battery Wave, Taking Aim for Another All-Time High
May 24, 2023The latest report from the Reshoring Initiative shows reshoring and FDI manufacturing job announcements continuing to outpace recent records, adding 101,500 jobs in Q1 2023, driven in large part by geopolitical tension and efforts to shore up dependence on an unreliable China.
How America’s Aerospace Industry Built China’s and a Market-Based Solution
April 18, 2023China is positioning to squeeze international incumbents out of their markets – by leveraging their technology. Corporate leadership should be held accountable for a business model of self-destruction; footprints in and partnerships with China in strategic sectors should be treated as a liability.
This Is the Blueprint for China’s Industrial Strategy
March 17, 2023China's "single champions" and "little giants" programs fuel an industrial ambition that entails not merely acquiring dominant industrial capacity, but also establishing positions of leverage in key global supply chains.
Toward Racial Equity in Industry: How the CHIPS and Science Act Can Fuel Inclusive Investment
March 13, 2023In the first Modern Manufacturer column, the Urban Manufacturing Alliance talked with Michelle Burris, Fellow at The Century Foundation about portions of the CHIPS and Science Act designed to provide support to Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
All Hat No CATL: Are State Leaders Wising up to China’s Industrial Threat?
March 2, 2023Ford has announced that it will collaborate with a Chinese State-backed supplier in establishing a battery plant for electric vehicles in Michigan. This despite the fact that an EV battery plant dependent on Chinese technology runs contrary to ambitions to shore up dependence on Chinese players and increase sustainable American industrial capacity.
A Four-Step Plan for Re-Industrialization
January 11, 2023The US needs to create the conditions in which companies see the advantage of investing in the United States. This piece outlines four steps to do so; a four-step, feasible, and immediate path toward American re-industrialization.
The European Commission’s Fiscal Policy Proposal Risks European Crisis
December 9, 2022Now on the European political table is the European Commission's proposal on the rules to govern fiscal policy of member states. Dr. Gustavo Piga argues that this proposal is even worse than its predecessors. It threatens to make an already fragile continent weaker. Italy should issue a resounding veto.
The China Nexus: Thirty Years in and around the Chinese Communist Party’s Tyranny
November 17, 2022The challenges facing US industrial dynamism extend are in part a product of the Chinese Communist Party’s market distortions: Rebuilding domestic industry will demand equal protection as well as promotion. This excerpt from Benedict Rogers’s The China Nexus details a new US resolve to protect.
Global Gateway Can Succeed – If It Focuses on Trusted Production
November 15, 2022The best prospect for getting Global Gateway going strong would be to understand that it must be turned into a tool that finances the external dimension of a European industrial policy cognizant of the need to diversify, to cut dependencies vis-à-vis authoritarian countries, and to find new ways of partnering with the Global South towards sustainable development.
A US Policy Roadmap for a Reshored Reality
November 9, 2022Reshoring, especially from China, is essential to American resilience. Here, Harry Moser proposes a framework and set of policy measures to level the industrial playing field. These could bring the total reshored US jobs to 5 million, a 40 percent increase in manufacturing, and full American resilience.
Want to Fix Inflation? Fix Supply
October 20, 2022An effective response to inflation – and to the more systemic supply demand mismatch that threatens the US economy – requires investment in supply. This is a project for the private sector. But the private sector needs a push from Washington.
Free Exchange with China Is Not Free Trade
October 12, 2022China is not a free market. Free exchange with China is not free trade. This is a straightforward reality. It is also one that goes under-stated in American discourse – and that demands spelling out: The short-sighted insistence that free exchange with China is free trade threatens the basic assumptions, and architecture, of international free trade itself.
Hard Problems: The US Tech Sector Is Ignoring the China Threat
September 16, 2022It is time for the US tech sector to recognize the near and present national security threat China poses; to get on the right side of history. For the US to prevail against a centralized, Communist system, its tech sector will have to lead, proactively. Markets will reward this. The country needs it.
The Lesson of Pelosi’s Taiwan Visit: Win The Production Battle, Win the War
August 23, 2022Positioning for the industrial competition at hand will require the US national security community to recognize that today's geopolitical contest may not be fought with missiles. Except, that is, as it applies to where those missiles are made. This is a war to be won on the factory floor. And it started long before Pelosi’s Taiwan visit.
An Economic Policy to Save Italy, and Europe
August 18, 2022How to craft an economic policy capable of saving Italy, and with it Europe? We have a few alternatives, summarized by the so-called "austerity trilemma" that affects the euro-area: You cannot have austerity (the loss of the possibility of using fiscal policy with increased public demand to counter adverse shocks and help the weakest), democracy, and a common euro currency simultaneously. We have to choose two of the three.
Security-Centric and Climate-Inclusive: Energy Policy for an Era of Great Power Politics
August 7, 2022The world is witnessing the first great power military challenge to the US-led liberal international order—an order that Russia and China have long sought to discredit and dismantle. This moment be seized upon to reorient Western thinking from its climate-centric mindset to one that’s security-centric and climate-inclusive
The True Cost of China Exposure and What To Do About It
August 6, 2022US industry is seeing the accumulated debts of decades of offshoring – and decades of offshoring to geopolitical adversaries – reach maturity. It’s time to adopt a new model. Instead of optimizing for the lowest costs, the US needs to start optimizing for resilience
With the Supply Crisis Accelerating, Industry Needs to Step Up Not Hunker Down
July 20, 2022For decades, bad habits have become entrenched. The country has allowed itself to auction off long-term economic prosperity in exchange for short-term profits. Now, the US must break its habits, not take false shelter in them.
Strategic Capitalism: The New Economic Strategy for Winning the Capitalist Cold War
July 11, 2022China’s ability to manage its economy and undermine the American capitalist model is still strong. This excerpt from Richard D'Aveni's prescient "Strategic Capitalism: The New Economic Strategy for Winning the Capitalist Cold War" outlines what to do to improve the American model.
Supply-Side Tools for a Supply-Side Problem
June 20, 2022An effective response to inflation – and to the more systemic supply demand mismatch that threatens the US economy – requires pairing the Fed’s monetary policy band-aids with investment in supply.
If Washington Wants to Beat Inflation, It Needs to Lean into Tariffs – Not Relax Them
June 6, 2022The answer to inflation is not to ease tariffs. It is to stop with the band-aids. The US should see inflation as the motivation to invest in domestic production; tariffs as the market opportunity to do so.
The Era of One Grand Bargain Is Over: Today’s Competition Demands Thousands of Bargains
May 29, 2022The United States needs to reclaim control over international industry. Doing so requires working with its allies and partners. But the United States will have to do so from the ground up, through countless compromises, and skirmishes, with the private sector. This is not an efficient method. But it is the only way to be effective.
Tariffs are Not the Reason for Inflation. They’re How to Fix It
May 7, 2022The answer to inflation is not to ease tariffs. It is to stop with the band-aids. It is to keep tariffs up, but also to take the proactive measures that they are supposed to encourage: The US should see inflation as a push to invest in domestic production; tariffs as the market opportunity to do so.
The Economy Is Shrinking. That’s Not a Good Thing.
April 29, 2022The optimistic take is first, that Washington sits at the perfect inflection point to adjust economic policies that contributed to this imbalance – and, second, that early indications suggest the private sector may already be taking the lead, whether Washington adjusts or not.
We Can Avoid Recession. But We Need to Fix Supply
April 22, 2022What if, in addition to immediate, demand-side monetary policy quick fixes, Washington was to set about investing in production of critical inputs, manufacturing facilities, and improved logistics systems? It’s entirely possible, and necessary.
Breaking the Inflation Cycle: A Roadmap for Domestic Resilience
April 15, 2022We need a gameplan for domestic resilience so that today's inflation crisis does not continue indefinitely and does not recur. We need to rethink our permissive approach external dependencies; to make sure that we can make more – and more of what is foundational to economic functioning -- at home.
The Amazon Playbook for Long Term Competitiveness
April 11, 2022In its board rooms and on the ground, Amazon is deliberately adopting frameworks and investments designed to foster long-term competitiveness, even what that comes at the expense of quarterly returns or shareholder enthusiasm.
China’s COVID-19 Lockdown Should Bring Production Back to America
April 8, 2022China’s COVID-19 debacle could be precisely the impetus the US needs to get serious about rebuilding supply chains. These should provide markets a prod to start pricing in the real costs of offshoring – and Washington justification for dedicated, emergency investments in domestic industry.
How Huawei Should Push the US to Reframe Commercial Success
April 3, 2022Huawei's annual report should be the push we need to start measuring success in terms of either competitive production or control over production – and to start investing in those.
