National Competitiveness

Please join ITIF for an important policy conference on what U.S. policymakers must do to prevent America from suffering a catastrophic defeat in its techno-economic-trade war with China. At stake are vital production capabilities in the advanced, traded-sector industries that provide the foundation for economic strength and national security in the 21st century.

NTAs restrict U.S. firms’ ability to innovate and compete on level terms, undermining U.S. technology leadership, economic strength, and national security in the geostrategic competition with China. Congress and the Administration need to have policy tools at their disposal to identify, document, prevent, and respond to these measures.

Canada should prioritize boosting productivity through the adoption of advanced technologies across its firms and governments, rather than pursuing domestic ownership of existing infrastructure in the name of “digital sovereignty.”

Canada’s path to lasting competitiveness lies in strategic indispensability: specializing in a small number of high value-added goods or services that the world can’t do without. Ottawa must continue making explicit decisions about what gets built and what does not; otherwise, it risks spending heavily with little to show for it.

The United States is at serious risk of becoming dependent on China for a wide array of key technologies and products, which would significantly shift the global balance of techno-economic power. Only fundamental policy change can potentially keep the United States from defeat.

The Chinese shipbuilding industry controls 55 percent of global market share, with exports increasing by 1,525 percent since 2004.

Letting Chinese EV and battery firms build in America wouldn’t revive manufacturing. It would reduce U.S. market share, hollow out domestic capabilities, and create new strategic dependencies.

While the Draft Guidelines generally and correctly focus on condemning only behavior that results in anticompetitive effects, in several specific respects they could be fine-tuned to provide for greater administrability and better limit false positives so as to ensure that innovation and competition flourish in Canada.

U.S. higher education plays a central role in science and engineering R&D, yet investment in these fields has declined over the past decade. This erosion threatens the future of U.S. technological leadership and its ability to compete with China.

Davos made clear that many “allies” would rather denounce the United States and chase access to Chinese markets than bear the burdens required to sustain the Western alliance and democratic system.