Op-ed: A Critical Moment for U.S. Industrial Policy

America’s technological future depends on access to the materials essential to nearly every dimension of our economy. It may seem counterintuitive, but our ever-growing dependence on tech and data, the cloud, smart devices and advanced clean-energy technologies renders us far more dependent on mining and resource development than ever before.

Yet, U.S. industrial policy hasn’t connected the dots, much to the benefit of our geopolitical rivals. As a result of complacency and inattention, we are now alarmingly dependent on imports — often from strategic rivals like China and Russia — for these essential materials.

China has developed and implemented a plan for its materials industry to achieve unrivaled superpower status. And China has dominated control of the raw materials and processing infrastructure necessary to the digital economy for some time.

Read the full op-ed here.