Author: R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D
There are two essential things that make a country successful and secure: the economy and military strength. This article will address what we need to do to strengthen our economy, and a subsequent article will deal with the military. Both will focus on putting America first, a principle of our Founding Fathers that we, unfortunately, have gotten away from.
The out of control national debt must be reversed if we have any hope of maintaining a strong economy. Beyond that, however, we need to go back to the American economy of the 1950s that made us the envy of the world. First, we need to return essential industries to America. For the past thirty years we have been allowing key manufacturing industries to move overseas, primarily to access cheap labor and increase corporate profits. This has made us very vulnerable to foreign countries, some of whom are our adversaries like China, for products essential to our economy. The recent supply shortage showed how the lack of items like computer chips can shut down our economy. Recently, it was announced that U.S. Steel may be sold to a foreign country. Automobile and parts manufacturing is increasingly occurring in other countries. China, for example, is the major manufacturer of electric vehicles. Allowing key manufacturing to leave this country not only diminishes good paying jobs, but prevents us from converting these manufacturing capabilities to military needs (such as tanks and planes) as we were able to do in World War II. The solution is to identify essential manufacturing products and to prohibit their movement to other countries. Imposing high tariffs on foreign competition should also be implemented for these essential products/industries. Republican Senator Josh Hawley just introduced a bill to place a 100% tariff on Chinese made electric vehicles. A good start.
Any country that does not control its food production is vulnerable to outside threat. Currently there are over 3.5 million acres of agricultural land in American owned by foreign entities. This also includes food processing companies, like Smithfield, now owned by a Chinese company. Does China allow foreign countries to own their food production? Absolutely not. This problem is rapidly getting worse and needs to be stopped by legislation at the state and federal levels.
Another essential category of products are pharmaceuticals. As we found out during the COVID outbreak, many of our essential drugs are produced overseas;. again, many in China. Totally absurd.
Lastly, modern manufacturing capacity and product development are based on evolving, complex technologies. Our educational system is failing us by not producing sufficient numbers of science and technology graduates. We focus on gender studies and sociology, while other countries focus on math and science. This needs to change if we have any hope of competing in the modern world.
Before you can solve a problem, you have to recognize and identify the problem. Our country must refocus on making America first to ensure we can remain secure and independent through a strong economy.