Trump Abolishes Industrial Policy With Billions In Industrial Policy

President Donald Trump declared big-government economic planning officially defeated Friday by unveiling more than $2 billion in federal loans and investments designed to steer selected companies toward industries chosen by Washington. The package includes a $1.4 billion Pentagon loan for Sila Nanotechnologies to build a lithium-battery plant, $400 million to expand scandium production in Australia and $150 million for Minnesota-based Niron Magnetics. More than $180 million will support mining education, allowing the nation’s next generation of rugged individualists to receive government-approved instruction in self-reliance.

“We are restoring the free market, totally restoring it, by giving companies billions of dollars and very strongly explaining what they should build and where they should build it,” Trump said. “That is real capitalism. The invisible hand is now visible, it works for me, and it signs extremely large checks.” Officials said the initiative would reduce U.S. dependence on China for critical minerals used in batteries, electronics and advanced technology by adopting Chinese industrial planning with better flags. Fiscal conservatives praised the approach, noting that government intervention becomes private enterprise when the recipient is a corporation, the check is large and the president signing it has spent years denouncing government intervention.

The White House also highlighted more than $1 billion in potential financing for an Arizona copper project and $25 million for an Alabama graphite mine, further freeing American industry from bureaucratic interference by placing its future in the hands of bureaucrats reviewing financing applications. Administration officials said the government would select strategic materials, approve favored projects, arrange public financing and monitor production targets while maintaining strict neutrality toward whichever companies received the money. The policy will continue until every critical American industry is fully independent of foreign governments, thoroughly dependent on the federal government and recognized as a triumph of laissez-faire economics. Industrial policy has therefore been abolished by expanding it.

* None of the quotes in this article were spoken by an actual person. More info.