19 June 2021

Leave Infrastructure to China and Compete Where the West Has More to Offer

Howard W. French

What does President Joe Biden’s first foray into international summitry reveal to us about the quality of his vision for America’s place in the world? As might be expected, some of the priorities he pursued in meetings this week with the leaders of the G-7, NATO and the European Union are timely and well-founded.

Think reassuring America’s oldest allies after the persistent disruption of the Trump years. Think building consensus around a collective response to increasingly aggressive Russian behavior, whether via cyberattacks emanating from that country or the menace Moscow poses to Ukraine or the Baltic states. In the more purely economic realm, think suspending the mutually harmful tariff war with the EU that began years ago over aircraft subsidies to Boeing and Airbus. Or efforts to harmonize taxation policies to make it harder for gigantic multinational companies like Google and Amazon, to name just two, to game widely varying fiscal laws around the world in order to shelter their income. ...

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