Needed: A Strategic Economic Policy

The American government and people need to wake up to some hard facts about international trade today. They understand the military and political challenges facing our country. What they don’t comprehend is that the United States is the target of economic warfare. They do not understand that without a strategic economic policy, the United States will lose its position as the number-one industrial power in the world.

Twenty years ago, the United States enjoyed economic pre-eminence. Today, its economic position is steadily weakening. The International Public Policy Research Corporation recently pointed out that “economically, the United States industrial base has eroded, capital needs are astronomical, work-force productivity is falling, and foreign competition grows fiercer every day.” But our public officials dream on. Murray L. Weidenbaum, for example, while he was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, contributed an article to Tax Review in which he counseled against any government action to oppose the efforts of foreign countries to dominate our domestic market, arguing that imports put dollars into foreign hands—dollars which can be used to buy our exports. The “benefits of trade,” he said, “are nearly always a two-way street.”

AH

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Anthony H. Harrigan

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The American government and people need to wake up to some hard facts about international trade today. They understand the military and political challenges facing our country. What they don’t comprehend is that the United States is the target of economic warfare. They do not understand that without a strategic economic policy, the United States will lose its position as the number-one industrial power in the world.

Twenty years ago, the United States enjoyed economic pre-eminence. Today, its economic position is steadily weakening. The International Public Policy Research Corporation recently pointed out that “economically, the United States industrial base has eroded, capital needs are astronomical, work-force productivity is falling, and foreign competition grows fiercer every day.” But our public officials dream on. Murray L. Weidenbaum, for example, while he was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, contributed an article to Tax Review in which he counseled against any government action to oppose the efforts of foreign countries to dominate our domestic market, arguing that imports put dollars into foreign hands—dollars which can be used to buy our exports. The “benefits of trade,” he said, “are nearly always a two-way street.”