The developed world is unable to compete on a level playing field against other countries when taking into consideration potentially enormous subsidies or developing world labor costs. Protectionism, when implemented strategically, can reduce these counterparty advantages. Investment is also a component, but they both work in concert to arrive at a desired outcome. And I think that’s really where this problem lies, that we’re arguing about protectionism versus investment, when we should be identifying what the desired outcome is and then, based on an inventory of all of the policy and capital allocation tools that we have available to us, implement what is needed to arrive at the desired outcome. We don’t want to sacrifice innovation (which calls for mechanisms to prevent companies from leaning too far towards entrenched interests vs innovators), but we also don’t want to run a race we cannot win because we unnecessarily handicap ourselves in an inherently unfair and unequal global market.

I am not a terribly smart person, and I don’t have all the answers, but I would argue it’s clear what we’ve done so far isn’t working, based on all available evidence.