Although this article comes from an unashamedly leftist source, it contains an answer to our prayers. Praise God!

From NPR. When the pandemic snarled imports in 2020, Drew Greenblatt’s manufacturing plant in Baltimore sprung into action to help U.S. buyers scrambling to replace things they normally ordered from overseas. …

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The supply chain snafus seen across the U.S. economy during the pandemic have bolstered a central plank of President Biden’s economic policy: he says that now is the time to invest in America, make things in America, and buy things made in America.

Biden’s vision is for the government to lure back manufacturing that moved offshore, particularly semiconductors and electric vehicles.

“Folks, where is it written that America can’t once again be the manufacturing capital of the world?” Biden said on a tour earlier this month of a Cummins plant in Minneapolis that makes a device used to produce clean power.

Biden has embraced what’s known as ‘industrial policy’

In speech after speech as he gears up for his reelection bid, Biden is making the case for his brand of industrial policy — using taxes, subsidies and regulations to systematically shape the economy.

Collectively, the president’s economic policies mark a kind of political intervention in the private sector that hasn’t been seen in decades. …

Trump started the shift back to industrial policy

Trump campaigned on ripping up trade deals and bringing back manufacturing — a message that resonated with white working-class voters — and as president, slapped massive tariffs on products coming from China.

“We want to ensure that more products are proudly stamped with the phrase — that beautiful phrase – made in the USA,” Trump said in October 2020 in Allentown, Pa., a refrain he used again and again at his rallies.

Biden has thus far kept Trump’s China tariffs in place. …

The vision is similar, said Christine McDaniel, a former U.S. government trade official under multiple administrations who now works at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She has viewed with alarm the shift toward industrial policy and away from free trade, noting that government has a bad track record on “picking winners and losers” through interventions in the economy.

“Somebody said this is like Trump wine, but in a Biden bottle,” McDaniel said, reflecting on the common elements of the presidents’ trade policies. “It is the same policy, but it’s just under a different brand.” …

The pandemic accelerated the industrial policy push

Regardless of which party or politician started the push, many Republicans and Democrats have bought into the principles of countering China and making more things in America.

White House officials and outside experts say China’s aggressive economic behavior in recent years has led to a growing realization the U.S. government needed to respond.

And then, COVID-19 hit, and quickly exposed the risks of relying on key supplies from overseas. …

[The] rise of China in the global economy has fundamentally changed how politicians think about industrial policy. …

The loss of manufacturing has shaped American politics

As manufacturing jobs left America over the past few decades, middle class voters were hit hard. Washington was slow to respond, said Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

“It wasn’t that the manufacturing economy fell out overnight. It was in atrophy,” Raimondo said. She said she was keenly aware of the risks of so much outsourcing. …

The popularity of Trump’s anti-trade message jolted Washington. And in the 2020 race, Biden’s message on the economy sounded a lot different than the party’s message four years early, when Hillary Clinton was the candidate. …

The administration’s industrial policy push is not motivated solely by economics. National security considerations are also shaping its policies.

“We buy 92% of advanced semiconductors from Taiwan,” said Raimondo, the commerce secretary. She said that puts the United States in an “utterly vulnerable position.” …

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(Excerpt from NPR. Photo Credit: Getty Images)