The PRC is great at coming up with numbered national mission statements, such as Deng Xiaoping’s “Four Cardinal Principles,” Xi Jinping’s “Four Comprehensives,” and Jiang Zemin’s “Three Represents.” But my favorite is the “Two Whatevers” (whatever Mao Zedong says is right).
In the context of U.S.-China rivalry, I believe the United States needs its own numbered set of slogans, and since I believe there are three critical questions the nation needs to decide, I will call them the “Three Decides.”
That’s because on virtually every trade, technology, and economic policy question America now faces, the core issue is not identifying or implementing solutions. ITIF and many other think tanks have already made their suggestions and proposals. The core issue is deciding what the problem is. As long as policymakers and the public cannot decide on the core problems—and in most cases cannot even correctly conceive of what they are—the chances of successfully addressing them are about as good as blindfolded monkeys writing Shakespeare.
Where someone lands on three fundamental yes-or-no decisions determines everything else downstream, and most of the policy debate in Washington is a proxy war over these questions even though no one ever mentions them. Here they are.
Decision #1: Is being the leading global power critical to the autonomy of the U.S. Republic, and is the nation at risk of losing that power to the PRC?
If it doesn’t matter whether the PRC has more power than the United States, then why support a strong defense budget and, as ITIF has argued, a robust techno-economic power strategy? For national developmentalists, the answer is to ensure China does not dominate key industries and gain leverage to turn America into a vassal state.
Many on the right, but not all, will answer both questions in the affirmative, too. But some free-market fundamentalists will maintain that while defense spending is key, there is no real global contest for techno-economic power, and free trade automatically produces optimal outcomes based on natural comparative advantage. Others will cling to the idea that America cannot lose to communist China because the free market system is always superior to a planned economy. Still others are globalists who sometimes place the interests of other nations ahead of America’s.
While some on the left will also answer yes to these two questions, many will not. For many progressives (and for officials with the Democratic Socialists of America), American power is something to be reined in, as they see it as an historical force for oppressing people of color around the globe to serve America’s capitalists.
Moreover, in their world, the dividing line is not nation but class. They argue that the American working class has more in common with the Chinese working class than it does with American capitalists. In an ITIF debate on what the United States should do regarding China, three progressives argued that the major goal is to improve the lives of workers internationally, especially in less-developed nations, even if that comes at America’s expense. When asked whether they prioritize the interests of the American republic, including corporations, or the interests of workers around the world, progressives Dean Baker, Jared Bernstein, and Thea Lee sided with the latter. A competitiveness-based industrial strategy would mean pushing for more growth in capitalist advanced industries at the expense of China and other nations—something that is anathema to progressives.
When this is a deeply held belief, the conclusion is not only to cut defense spending, but also to view a national economic power strategy as corporate welfare that also hurts opportunities for the global poor, while adding to global warming. Joseph Stiglitz has made this case explicitly, arguing it would be better to rein in large corporations and end the “trade war” with China, as it hurts workers globally.
Decision #2: Are economic growth and innovation good, and does maximizing them require explicit, proactive policies?
If it is agreed that growth and technological innovation are good and need to be actively supported by government, then elected officials are much more likely to craft policies supporting both. If the answer to either of these is no, then most policies will effectively constrain growth and innovation.
Conservatives generally still prioritize growth, and many, particularly non-MAGA conservatives, prioritize innovation. But increasingly, MAGA Republicans have turned against innovation, seeing it as a form of control over free Americans. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s support for a ban on data center construction and Senator Josh Hawley’s (R-MO) opposition to a moratorium on state AI regulations are emblematic.
Hawley spoke for many Republicans last year when he stated, “I thought we were the party of individual rights.” But that is not the Republican Party of Theodore Roosevelt, who stated, “The New Nationalism puts the national need before sectional or personal advantage.” Nor is it the language of the founders, as when John Adams argued that “public virtue is the only foundation of republics.” The Republican Party used to stand for “civic republicanism,” guided by duty, not license. Indeed, when a political party champions individual rights that take precedence over national greatness, the Republic is in peril.
Moreover, even conservatives who prioritize growth and innovation generally see them as forces that drive forward on autopilot, lagging only when government gets in the way with problematic taxes and restrictive regulations. To be sure, the latter can and often does limit needed growth and innovation. But if we want to avoid losing the techno-economic war to China, we also need proactive growth and innovation policies, such as an expanded Export-Import Bank, more generous R&D credit, robust funding for collaborative, industry-led research initiatives, and limits on Chinese imports.
Liberals—and especially progressives—increasingly have even more problematic views on this front. Some have embraced a degrowth agenda to fight global warming. Others advance the inaccurate notion that growth no longer benefits American workers, and argue instead for a largely redistributive agenda in which government expands benefits for the bottom 60 percent of the labor market (e.g., free tuition and childcare, subsidized housing, national health insurance, and more). And when it comes to technological innovation, many have simply turned against it, seeing it as a tool to enrich the “tech bros” while impoverishing, spying on, manipulating, and laying off workers. Under this view, the odds of pro-growth and pro-innovation policies prevailing are quite low. The odds of anti-growth and anti-innovation policies prevailing are high.
Decision #3: Is the United States a fundamentally good, or even great, country, and where it falls short, is reform not only possible but expected?
If policymakers believe that, for all its mistakes and flaws, America is a great nation—and that reform is not only possible but has been the pattern of American governance since the founding—then they will be significantly more likely to care about building on the current system and not losing ground to China. In general, conservatives and Republicans are more likely to believe this, although many continue to resist the kinds of reforms needed to boost opportunity and justice.
A growing share of Democrats (and DSA officials) reject this framing. They see America as tainted by the original sins of racism and capitalism, and believe that radical transformation is the only answer. If policymakers believe this, it follows that their patriotism will be diminished, and they will be less likely to support efforts to “make America strong and rich again.” They will instead seek to weaken America as it is currently structured, since a weakened America creates opportunities for their transformative agenda—overthrowing the “white patriarchy,” radically curbing capitalism and private property, and focusing on global rather than American challenges, such as climate change, poverty, and human rights.
I know what I believe. It is time for America to decide these “Three Decides” in favor of national power, innovation, growth, and the kind of national greatness Teddy Roosevelt stood for. U.S. national power is critical, and the nation is at risk of losing that power to the PRC. Economic growth and innovation are the wellspring of national power, and maximizing them requires smart government policies. The United States is a flawed, but still great nation, where continuous improvement is not only possible but the norm.
Time is running out, though. Unless men and women of integrity, reason, and patriotism band together to advance the right answers to these “Three Decides,” the odds of America effectively responding to the challenges described above are quite small. As such, it is long past time to get back to General Douglas MacArthur’s call to embrace “duty, honor, and country.”