The hottest Industrial Policy Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways

Japan can be America's arsenal

Noahpinion • 22706 implied HN points • 04 Mar 26

🌍 World Politics Industrial Policy

Japan can rapidly serve as a production base for U.S. defense needs because it has deep industrial capabilities, experienced engineers, strong IP protection, and faster regulatory paths.
Japan is rapidly scaling defense capacity by increasing spending, using industrial policy and subsidies, and courting foreign investment and co-manufacturing partnerships.
U.S. defense and deep-tech companies should move quickly to partner with Japan, since it already supplies critical materials and manufacturing and early partners gain strategic advantages.

Democratic economic policy in the age of AI

Noahpinion • 15823 implied HN points • 20 Feb 26

🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Industrial Policy

Craft economic policy that’s robust to huge uncertainty from fast AI and other tech changes, so it will work under many different future scenarios.
The 2010s progressive playbook of demand stimulus and big care subsidies ran into problems—macro conditions shifted to inflation, subsidies can push up provider prices, and promised billionaire taxes didn’t materialize.
Move toward an agenda of abundance: have government take an ownership stake in the corporate system and push policies that promote and support human work so gains from AI are widely shared.

Let the Chinese cars in

Noahpinion • 27529 implied HN points • 27 Jan 26

💼 Business Industrial Policy

The U.S. should allow Chinese electric cars in under tight rules — low tariffs and limited imports at first, plus requirements for U.S. factories, joint ventures, and local content to spur domestic production.
Cheap, high-quality Chinese EVs would raise American EV adoption, expand charging infrastructure, and force U.S. automakers to invest and innovate, helping rebuild the domestic battery and motor supply chain.
Espionage and sabotage are real risks, but they can be managed with strong cybersecurity, oversight, American-hosted software and networks, and strict monitoring of components, making controlled access preferable to an outright ban.

Europe is under siege

Noahpinion • 56765 implied HN points • 07 Dec 25

🌍 World Politics Industrial Policy

Europe now faces a real security squeeze: an aggressive Russia aided by China on one side and an increasingly unreliable United States on the other, so European security can no longer be taken for granted.
Europe must act more like a single country by integrating militarily and economically — coordinating defense procurement, building a domestic defense-industrial base (drones, batteries, chips, AI), and strengthening its nuclear and conventional forces.
Europe needs big policy changes at home and abroad: create fiscal tools to fund defense, reform social and energy policies to free resources, onshore critical industries, and diversify partners and export markets (India, Japan, Korea, etc.) to reduce dependence on China and the U.S.

America must embrace the Electric Age, or fall behind

Noahpinion • 26823 implied HN points • 09 Jan 26

🕹 Technology Industrial Policy

The Electric Tech Stack—lithium‑ion batteries, rare‑earth motors, power electronics, and solar—is making electricity replace combustion across cars, drones, robots, and many other products.
China is scaling up mass production of these technologies while U.S. politics and weak infrastructure (like charging and battery plants) are holding America back.
Mastering the electric stack is vital for economic and national security because batteries and power electronics underlie AI, data centers, drones, and defense; the U.S. must make it easier to build and scale high‑tech manufacturing.

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America Can’t Rebuild Its Arsenal Without Silicon Valley

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 278 implied HN points • 16 Mar 26

🕹 Technology Industrial Policy

U.S. manufacturing has lost efficiency and lagged behind for years, leaving the industrial base weaker than it used to be.
Meanwhile software, AI, and tech innovation have surged, but Silicon Valley startups and legacy defense manufacturers remain largely disconnected.
To rebuild military strength, America needs to fuse cutting‑edge software and data with modern weapons manufacturing in a new industrial revolution.

Why Europe should resist the Second China Shock

Noahpinion • 25706 implied HN points • 24 Dec 25

🌍 World Politics Industrial Policy

Europe needs to keep its manufacturing base so it can scale up weapons and equipment quickly in a high-tech war; letting industry die would weaken its military options.
Cheap, high-tech Chinese exports are creating large trade deficits that act like IOUs and can drain Europe of jobs, profits, and the innovative capacity that comes from making things at scale.
To stop this, Europe should use targeted measures — tariffs and non-tariff barriers on Chinese goods, export subsidies, allied-scale partnerships, joint ventures, and pressure on China’s exchange rate — to rebuild and protect domestic industry.

America's chip export controls are working

Noahpinion • 18294 implied HN points • 02 Jan 26

🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Industrial Policy

Export controls on advanced chips and equipment are effectively slowing China’s progress and help the U.S. keep a crucial technological edge that supports military deterrence.
Allowing sales of powerful chips like Nvidia’s H200 would sharply reduce America’s AI compute advantage and let Chinese AI labs catch up faster, increasing the risk of conflict.
Many touted Chinese breakthroughs (e.g., 7nm or EUV prototypes) are overstated and China still faces major technical and supply-chain hurdles, so selling chips won’t stop indigenization and may only accelerate China’s capabilities.

The Weeb Economy

Noahpinion • 8235 implied HN points • 30 Dec 25

💼 Business Industrial Policy

Japan’s post-2008 stagnation has left productivity and living standards lagging, so the focus should shift from macro fixes to micro and development policies that raise productivity and make life easier for ordinary people.
A multi-pronged industrial strategy is needed: modernize big firms, nurture startups, and actively attract greenfield platform FDI (foreign factories and offices) because it brings investment, exports, jobs, and tacit technology transfer.
Japan can leverage its huge global cultural appeal and uniquely attractive cities to draw entrepreneurs, capital, and skilled workers by making life and business easier for foreigners—simple steps include streamlined visas and banking, targeted investment packages, and support for creative small businesses.

Has the bailout of generative AI already begun?

Marcus on AI • 11185 implied HN points • 27 Nov 25

🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Industrial Policy

The White House's Genesis program involves big government purchases of AI chips and could effectively act as a bailout for money‑losing AI companies.
The timing and quick reversal of industry leaders' rhetoric make the support look coordinated rather than purely coincidental.
It's uncertain whether this funding will produce real scientific gains or just prop up unprofitable firms, and it could be the first of many such subsidies.

China Speed

Doomberg • 6650 implied HN points • 17 Dec 25

🌍 World Politics Industrial Policy

When China makes a sector a national priority it uses subsidies, IP acquisition, and lax oversight to propel state-backed companies to global dominance.
China now dominates auto manufacturing and electric vehicle sales—producing over 30 million vehicles a year and exporting lots of parts—which threatens foreign automakers and helps cut its oil dependence and urban pollution.
China sits on the world’s largest shale gas and huge shale oil resources but has struggled with technical and geological barriers; recent signs suggest it may be close to unlocking those resources, which could shake up global energy markets.

Op-ed in Foreign Policy: ‘Made in America’ Should Accept Chinese Investment

Pekingnology • 98 implied HN points • 17 Mar 26

🌍 World Politics Industrial Policy

The U.S. should allow tightly constrained Chinese investment that protects national security through legal ringfencing, governance safeguards, robust audits, and a clear link to American production and jobs.
Broadly excluding Chinese participation is counterproductive and inconsistent with other U.S. economic goals, because it raises costs, slows manufacturing scale-up, and conflicts with efforts that deepen China’s reliance on U.S. supply.
Policy should use a precise risk test focused on control or privileged data access, favor structured partnerships and minority stakes with governance concessions, and press Beijing to make data-security rules legible and enforceable to enable limited cooperation.

How the US Won Back Chip Manufacturing

ChinaTalk • 504 implied HN points • 17 Feb 26

🕹 Technology Industrial Policy

A focused mix of big incentives (like an investment tax credit and targeted grants) plus a small, execution‑focused team is what actually accelerated a large semiconductor fab buildout in the U.S., not just market demand alone.
Effective industrial policy needs the right balance of simple market tools and discretionary powers for urgent problems, and it must be governed with transparency and insulation from politics or public trust breaks down.
To make this repeatable, the country needs durable state capacity that can attract talent, deploy capital, accept some failures, and differentiate between defensive fixes for chokepoints and offensive bets on future enabling R&D.

Stupid people in Baden-Württemberg hand massive electoral victory to the Greens so they can continue to sacrifice their industry to the weather gods

eugyppius: a plague chronicle • 178 implied HN points • 09 Mar 26

🌍 World Politics Industrial Policy

The Greens narrowly won the Baden-Württemberg election and look set to lead the government, with the CDU a close second. This outcome likely means continued focus on green energy policies that critics say could hurt industrial competitiveness.
The CDU’s campaign errors and its refusal to consider partnering with the AfD weakened its bargaining power, while the AfD made notable gains among workers. That shift is reshaping coalition possibilities and political leverage in the state.
The SPD and FDP suffered heavy losses, shrinking centrist opposition and changing future coalition dynamics. Many observers blame past energy decisions, like the nuclear phase-out, for high electricity prices and long-term industrial decline.

#32: Contra Citrini7 (Repost)

Loeber on Substack • 244 implied HN points • 01 Mar 26

🕹 Technology Industrial Policy

Institutions and markets have strong momentum, so technological disruption usually happens more slowly and gradually than dramatic predictions, which gives people and policymakers time to adapt.
Most software today is still badly made, so AI will mainly enable better and more complex products rather than instantly eliminating demand; that continued improvement will keep creating software work.
Large-scale re-industrialization and infrastructure projects (like batteries, chips, and water systems) can absorb displaced workers, rebuild supply chains, and provide lasting, tangible jobs that public investment can support.

Yao Yang: the post-2018 evolution in China's political economy

Pekingnology • 128 implied HN points • 13 Mar 26

🌍 World Politics Industrial Policy

Since 2018 China has entered a "new era" where the government is correcting reform-era excesses. It is cracking down on corruption, deleveraging finance, shrinking property speculation, and curbing oversized platform and tutoring industries to reassert state control and redirect resources.
The leadership is doubling down on manufacturing and pushing for technological self-reliance, emphasizing "zero-to-one" breakthrough innovation and building a complete, independent tech ecosystem by around 2035.
Those domestic priorities are closely tied to geopolitics: China aims to win tech competition with the U.S., build military strength from industrial and tech capacity, and press for eventual reunification with Taiwan. Possible bilateral outcomes range from stabilized competition and limited investment openings to a peaceful settlement over Taiwan.

🔥 American hot rocks

Faster, Please! • 731 implied HN points • 16 Feb 26

🌞 Climate & Environment Industrial Policy

America’s shale boom was a joint effort: government funded early science and field trials while private companies did the risky tinkering and cost-cutting to make it commercial.
Lawmakers are trying to copy that playbook for advanced (superhot) geothermal by using public funding to absorb early technical risk and spur demonstrations.
If government-backed R&D and private-sector scaling work together again, geothermal could be developed into a large, competitive clean energy source.

$3000 Essay Contest on Economic Security

ChinaTalk • 741 implied HN points • 05 Feb 26

🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Industrial Policy

Economic security is a rising bipartisan priority, with both parties backing a more active government role in markets to protect U.S. power and long-term growth.
ChinaTalk is running an essay contest to prompt concrete thinking, asking for high-level KPIs for economic security and proposals for where to invest $10–50 billion, including defensive and offensive ideas.
The contest offers a $3,000 prize pool, features prominent judges, requests 2,500–4,000 word essays, and has a submission deadline of March 1.

Developing countries: A follow-up

Noahpinion • 18176 implied HN points • 14 Jul 25

🌐 International Industrial Policy

Many developing countries are still facing challenges after the pandemic, but some are showing hope for industrial growth. Countries like India and Vietnam have potential but need to overcome significant obstacles to grow faster.
Political stability is key for economic growth in developing countries. Places like Bangladesh have suffered from unrest, which hurt their economies significantly, while Ghana has remained stable and seen moderate success.
Some countries have managed to rise to developed status through good policies and investment, like Poland and Malaysia. Their journeys offer valuable lessons for other nations striving for similar progress.

The End of Salt?

Material World • 1542 implied HN points • 16 Jan 26

💼 Business Industrial Policy

Britain's chemicals industry is rapidly shrinking, with long-standing plants for things like soda ash and ammonia closing and domestic salt production now at risk.
Salt is a surprisingly vital raw material that feeds into many everyday and high-tech products, from glass and paper to the chemicals used in semiconductors and batteries.
This points to a bigger trade-off: do we prioritise cheap imports or keep strategic manufacturing at home, and do we really understand how global supply networks are configured?

What can India do to industrialize?

Noahpinion • 11941 implied HN points • 04 Aug 25

💼 Business Industrial Policy

India has struggled with industrialization due to strict labor laws that make it hard for big companies to adjust their workforce. Changing these rules could help factories grow and be more flexible.
Acquiring land for industry is a big challenge, causing high costs and delays. Making it easier to convert agricultural land for industrial use could boost manufacturing.
India needs to embrace international trade more openly to grow its industries. Focusing on exports and forming trade agreements can help Indian products compete globally.

Selling H200s to China Is Unwise and Unpopular

Don't Worry About the Vase • 2553 implied HN points • 09 Dec 25

🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Industrial Policy

Selling Nvidia H200 chips to China would hand China a big, immediate compute advantage and weaken America’s lead in AI, which is a core national security concern.
The H200 is much more powerful than previous exportable chips and China won’t make rivals for years, so large exports would let Chinese labs train frontier models and build cheaper data centers — and every chip sold to China is one fewer for U.S. users.
The move is broadly unpopular with experts and lawmakers, may be limited or reversed, and probably delivers little lasting benefit to the U.S. or Nvidia beyond short-term revenue.

Yes, reshoring American industry is possible

Noahpinion • 30882 implied HN points • 25 Jan 25

🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Industrial Policy

Reshoring American manufacturing is gaining support from both political parties. People are starting to believe that the U.S. can successfully make things again.
Certain industries like solar power, semiconductors, and batteries are showing promising signs of growth in the U.S. This means that American factories are being built and jobs are being created.
The success in these industries could lead to more manufacturing opportunities across the country. A strong manufacturing base helps related businesses and creates a good economic environment.

This Week in Canada: If You Believe That, I Have a Bridge Named After Gordie Howe to Sell You

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 347 implied HN points • 10 Feb 26

🌍 World Politics Industrial Policy

Canada is moving to strengthen economic ties with China as part of a strategy to reduce dependence on the United States.
Concrete steps include allowing a limited number of Chinese-made electric vehicles and removing tariffs on Canadian canola to boost exports.
Donald Trump publicly attacked the arrangement, calling it a disaster and suggesting the U.S. views Canada’s friendlier trade posture toward China as part of the broader U.S.–China confrontation.

When “State Influence” Becomes a Shortcut

Pekingnology • 173 implied HN points • 24 Feb 26

🌍 World Politics Industrial Policy

Treat “state influence” as a starting condition, not the conclusion; don’t assume the state is directing every viral story without specific evidence.
China’s media ecosystem favors reposting and aggregation, so the same story appearing across many portals can be organic distribution rather than a centrally orchestrated campaign.
Claims of coordinated pressure need concrete signs—authoritative outlets driving the narrative, synchronized timing, regulatory follow-through, or direct official cues—and analysts should weigh alternative explanations like market competition or social-media dynamics.

Attribution Error: A Case Study in How China Narratives Are Built on Sand

Pekingnology • 196 implied HN points • 21 Feb 26

🌍 World Politics Industrial Policy

Check who actually runs a site before calling a story state propaganda; similar-looking domains can be totally different and official registries can confirm affiliation.
News often spreads through reposts and commercial portals, so the original source and its local context matter more than the outlet you first see.
Don’t infer political intent without verifying attribution and context; apply labels like “industrial policy” consistently instead of forcing stories to fit a neat narrative.

Does Manufacturing Matter?

ChinaTalk • 726 implied HN points • 29 Dec 25

🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Industrial Policy

Manufacturing alone is not a reliable path to mass jobs or higher productivity in advanced economies, since automation and high-value services often capture most of the gains.
Manufacturing matters for national security and geopolitics, but the priority should be targeted: focus on chokepoints and dual-use goods like chips and magnets rather than low-value items like t-shirts.
Industrial policy needs rigorous trade-off analysis—assessing monopolization risk, how quickly capacity can be repurposed, ecosystem effects, and opportunity costs—before deciding where to subsidize production versus buying other capabilities.

Trump's middle class tax hike

Slow Boring • 5522 implied HN points • 06 Feb 24

🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Industrial Policy

Tariffs proposed by Trump are essentially taxes on imported goods
Trump's tax increase could lead to economic distortions and benefit specific groups rather than the government
Implementing broad tariffs may not strategically benefit national economic development

Biden's tarnished industrial legacy

Noahpinion • 15529 implied HN points • 06 Jan 25

🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Industrial Policy

Biden's industrial policies, like the CHIPS Act, created a boom in U.S. manufacturing, which is good for the economy. These programs encouraged private companies to invest in factories and technology.
Despite some successes, Biden's approach had major flaws, like listening too much to special interest groups and not fixing regulatory issues that slow down government action. These problems could hinder the future of manufacturing in America.
Blocking Nippon Steel's attempt to buy U.S. Steel seemed like a protective move, but it upset an important ally, Japan, and could hurt the U.S. economy by stalling investments and modernization that the deal would have brought.

We Can Make Nuclear Cheap Again Now Downloadable

Gordian Knot News • 197 implied HN points • 12 Feb 26

🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Industrial Policy

A book proposing a Nuclear Reorganization Act sold very poorly, so its PDF was released for free to try to spread the ideas more widely.
About 100 free hard copies were sent to potentially influential people but produced virtually no engagement — only one polite response.
The Trump administration has favored politically chosen but economically weak nuclear projects, wasted taxpayer money, and hampered better competitive options versus Russia and China, increasing the likelihood of a crisis that could finally force reform.

The Future of Economic Security with Dan Kim and Chris Miller

ChinaTalk • 296 implied HN points • 21 Jan 26

🕹 Technology Industrial Policy

A modest CHIPS budget can’t fully de-risk the U.S. from foreign suppliers, so policy should aim for resilience — building key clusters, mature-node capacity, and capability — rather than unaffordable self-sufficiency.
Measure economic security with clear metrics like the Four Cs (capacity, capability, competition, criticality) and practical goals such as minimizing “time to recovery,” while creating institutions and incentives to execute and coordinate industrial strategy.
There’s a trade-off between invention (high-value innovators) and fast-following scale-ups: both matter for national power, and friend-shoring or managed dependence can be strategic tools alongside export controls and international partnerships.

The Right Industrial Policy Thinks Small

Dana Blankenhorn: Facing the Future • 19 implied HN points • 21 Oct 24

🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Industrial Policy

Support small companies instead of big ones. Small companies can be more flexible and focused on their mission, leading to better outcomes.
Encourage young and hungry talent. It’s smarter to invest in fresh ideas from people who might not be well-known yet than to only look for established experts.
Spread out resources more evenly. Smaller subsidies to many innovators can create more successful companies than big subsidies to just a few giants.

Labor Unions Are Industrial Policy

BIG by Matt Stoller • 32430 implied HN points • 04 Nov 23

🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Industrial Policy

Labor unions can influence corporate investment decisions and set industrial policy.
There is a shift towards empowering workers to have a greater say in how corporations operate.
The rise of antitrust enforcement, labor activism, and focus on domestic manufacturing subsidies are interconnected in challenging the influence of financiers and middlemen.

Economics Links, 12/25/2025

In My Tribe • 273 implied HN points • 25 Dec 25

💼 Business Industrial Policy

Productivity often comes from many small, practical, firm-level efficiency improvements and incremental innovations rather than a single big breakthrough.
There are multiple competing explanations for why industrialization happens, so no single factor fully explains events like Britain’s early industrial revolution.
Some argue protectionism or industrial policy can shelter and encourage domestic manufacturing investment, while others warn such policies often do more harm than good and that trade deficits can reflect productive capital imports. Being able to sustain attention and mental effort—cognitive endurance—is becoming an important skill for many modern jobs.

Review: How Africa Works

The Works in Progress Newsletter • 31 implied HN points • 26 Feb 26

🌐 International Industrial Policy

Africa began with uniquely difficult endowments — low population density, weak education, concentrated landholding, and fragmented politics — and those constraints help explain its slower growth; as these preconditions improve, disciplined policies that combine land reform, export-focused industry, and directed investment could make a big difference.
When smallholder farmers get secure tenure, inputs, training, and market access, productivity and poverty reduction follow reliably, making agricultural reform the clearest and most persuasive path to broad-based gains.
Export-led manufacturing is a much harder route today because China dominates low-cost production, automation reduces labor intensity, and globalization has slowed, so services-led growth or other alternative paths may be more realistic for many African countries even if they produce lower-wage, lower-skill jobs.

The hottest Industrial Policy Substack posts right now

Noahpinion • 22706 implied HN points • 04 Mar 26

Noahpinion • 15823 implied HN points • 20 Feb 26

Noahpinion • 27529 implied HN points • 27 Jan 26

Noahpinion • 56765 implied HN points • 07 Dec 25

Noahpinion • 26823 implied HN points • 09 Jan 26

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 278 implied HN points • 16 Mar 26

Noahpinion • 25706 implied HN points • 24 Dec 25

Noahpinion • 18294 implied HN points • 02 Jan 26

Noahpinion • 8235 implied HN points • 30 Dec 25

Marcus on AI • 11185 implied HN points • 27 Nov 25

Doomberg • 6650 implied HN points • 17 Dec 25

Chartbook • 529 implied HN points • 19 Feb 26

Pekingnology • 98 implied HN points • 17 Mar 26

ChinaTalk • 504 implied HN points • 17 Feb 26

eugyppius: a plague chronicle • 178 implied HN points • 09 Mar 26

Loeber on Substack • 244 implied HN points • 01 Mar 26

Pekingnology • 128 implied HN points • 13 Mar 26

Faster, Please! • 731 implied HN points • 16 Feb 26

ChinaTalk • 741 implied HN points • 05 Feb 26

Noahpinion • 18176 implied HN points • 14 Jul 25

Material World • 1542 implied HN points • 16 Jan 26

Noahpinion • 11941 implied HN points • 04 Aug 25

Don't Worry About the Vase • 2553 implied HN points • 09 Dec 25

Noahpinion • 30882 implied HN points • 25 Jan 25

Chartbook • 572 implied HN points • 26 Jan 26

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 347 implied HN points • 10 Feb 26

Pekingnology • 173 implied HN points • 24 Feb 26

Pekingnology • 196 implied HN points • 21 Feb 26

ChinaTalk • 726 implied HN points • 29 Dec 25

Slow Boring • 5522 implied HN points • 06 Feb 24

Noahpinion • 15529 implied HN points • 06 Jan 25

Gordian Knot News • 197 implied HN points • 12 Feb 26

ChinaTalk • 296 implied HN points • 21 Jan 26

Dana Blankenhorn: Facing the Future • 19 implied HN points • 21 Oct 24

Chartbook • 429 implied HN points • 01 Jan 26

Chartbook • 329 implied HN points • 11 Jan 26

BIG by Matt Stoller • 32430 implied HN points • 04 Nov 23

Chartbook • 515 implied HN points • 13 Dec 25

In My Tribe • 273 implied HN points • 25 Dec 25

The Works in Progress Newsletter • 31 implied HN points • 26 Feb 26