Manufacturing was what allowed the United States to become the world superpower it is today, but modern industrial policy does not reflect it. In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) envisioned a new path for American industry, one that involves "focusing on the domestic industrial base and the working class, not fantasies such as the "green transition" and moves to deregulate business.
"I believe our country needs industrial policy to rebuild our manufacturing sector, which has suffered decades of neglect and unfair competition. I also believe the Biden administration has done industrial policy wrong, throwing vast sums of money at questionable projects and arguably empowering Communist China in the process," Sen. Rubio wrote before providing historical examples of how the U.S. government has empowered manufacturers through policy.
However, in the years since the end of the Cold War, Sen. Rubio suggested policymakers "created a one-sided narrative that free enterprise had done it all. And they subsequently neglected the policy levers that supported our great manufacturers in the private sector."
Moreover, he spoke of the effects of deindustrialization in America, with working-class citizens experiencing "downward mobility and political volatility" while suffering socially, as fewer Americans are participating in the workforce, getting married, and having kids. Simultaneously, "Loneliness, drug addiction, and suicide are on the rise."
Although the Biden Administration has sought to bring manufacturing back to America's shores, its chief drives for this goal, the CHIPS Act and Inflation Reduction Act were judged by Rubio as not good enough since "The Chips Act was supposed to help the United States compete with China on semiconductors, but because of lobbyist pressure, the bill was watered down so that U.S. companies can now receive subsidies to build factories at home while maintaining or even expanding “legacy chip” production in China."
Similarly, the Inflation Reduction Act's promised "green manufacturing boom" empowers China far more than it does the United States.
As a result, Rubio said Republicans cannot simply undo the Biden Administration's policies and "resume a pre-2017 economic mind-set because the Biden administration has botched its economic efforts."
Instead, the Florida Senator said Republicans should craft policy in a new direction. It must involve "focusing on the domestic industrial base and the working class, not fantasies such as the “green transition.” It means supporting critical industries such as mining, oil and gas, and metallurgy — all of which are vital to our security. It means tying generous subsidies to performance requirements such as export quotas. Finally, it means getting serious about deregulation and permitting reform to create a competitive business environment where industrial policy can actually work."
