風蕭蕭_Frank
以文會友
White House's Sullivan: US Not Looking to Decouple From China Economy
By Reuters April 27, 2023
White House's Sullivan: US Not Looking to Decouple From China Economy
首先，我要感謝大家允許國家安全顧問討論經濟學。
正如你們大多數人所知，上周耶倫國務卿就在街上就我們對中國的經濟政策發表了重要講話。今天，我想著眼於我們更廣泛的國際經濟政策，特別是因為它與拜登總統的核心承諾有關——實際上，與他對我們的日常指導——更深入地整合國內政策和外交政策有關。
二戰後，美國帶領支離破碎的世界建立國際經濟新秩序。 它使數億人擺脫了貧困。 它持續了激動人心的技術革命。 它幫助美國和世界上許多其他國家實現了新的繁榮水平。
但過去幾十年揭示了這些基礎的裂縫。 不斷變化的全球經濟讓許多在職美國人及其社區落在了後麵。
一場金融危機震撼了中產階級。 大流行暴露了我們供應鏈的脆弱性。 不斷變化的氣候威脅著生命和生計。 俄羅斯入侵烏克蘭凸顯了過度依賴的風險。
所以這一刻要求我們達成新的共識。
這就是為什麽美國在拜登總統的領導下正在推行現代工業和創新戰略——無論是在國內還是與世界各地的合作夥伴。 一個投資於我們自己的經濟和技術實力的來源，促進多元化和有彈性的全球供應鏈，為從勞動力和環境到可信技術和良好治理的一切製定高標準，並部署資本來提供公共產品 比如氣候和健康。
現在，一些人所說的“新華盛頓共識”在某種程度上是美國獨有的，或者是美國和西方被排除在外的想法是完全錯誤的。
這一戰略將建立一個更公平、更持久的全球經濟秩序，造福於我們自己和世界各地的人民。
所以今天，我想做的是闡述我們正在努力做的事情。 我將首先定義我們所看到的挑戰——我們麵臨的挑戰。 為了接受它們，我們不得不重新審視一些舊的假設。 然後，我將逐步介紹我們的方法是如何量身定製的，以應對這些挑戰。
兩年多前，當拜登總統上任時，在我們看來，這個國家麵臨著四項根本性挑戰。
首先，美國的工業基礎被掏空。
在戰後年代——實際上在我們的大部分曆史中——為美國項目注入活力的公共投資願景已經消退。它已經讓位於一係列倡導減稅和放鬆管製、私有化而非公共行動以及貿易自由化本身作為目的的思想。
所有這些政策的核心都有一個假設：市場總是高效地分配資本——不管我們的競爭對手做了什麽，不管我們共同麵臨的挑戰有多大，也不管我們拆除了多少護欄。
現在，沒有人——當然不是我——在低估市場的力量。 但以過於簡單化的市場效率為名，戰略商品的整個供應鏈——連同製造它們的行業和工作崗位——都轉移到了海外。 深度貿易自由化將幫助美國出口商品而不是就業和產能的假設是一個承諾，但沒有兌現。
另一個內在的假設是增長的類型並不重要。 所有的增長都是好的增長。 因此，各種改革結合在一起，使金融等一些經濟部門享有特權，而半導體和基礎設施等其他重要部門則萎縮了。 我們的工業能力——這對任何國家持續創新的能力都至關重要——受到了真正的打擊。
全球金融危機和全球大流行病的衝擊暴露了這些普遍假設的局限性。
我們麵臨的第二個挑戰是適應地緣政治和安全競爭所定義的具有重要經濟影響的新環境。
過去幾十年的大部分國際經濟政策都依賴這樣一個前提，即經濟一體化將使各國更加負責任和開放，全球秩序將更加和平與合作——將各國納入基於規則的秩序將激勵 他們遵守它的規則。
事實並非如此。 在某些情況下確實如此，而在很多情況下卻沒有。
到拜登總統上任時，我們不得不麵對一個現實，即一個龐大的非市場經濟體已經以一種帶來相當大挑戰的方式融入國際經濟秩序。
中華人民共和國繼續對鋼鐵等傳統工業部門以及清潔能源、數字基礎設施和先進生物技術等未來關鍵行業提供大規模補貼。 美國不僅失去了製造業——我們還削弱了我們在決定未來的關鍵技術方麵的競爭力。
經濟一體化並沒有阻止中國擴大其在該地區的軍事野心，也沒有阻止俄羅斯入侵其民主鄰國。 這兩個國家都沒有變得更加負責任或更加合作。
忽視幾十年來自由化建立起來的經濟依賴性已經變得非常危險——從歐洲的能源不確定性到醫療設備、半導體和關鍵礦物的供應鏈脆弱性。 這些是可以利用經濟或地緣政治影響力的依賴類型。
我們麵臨的第三個挑戰是日益加劇的氣候危機以及對公正高效的能源轉型的迫切需求。
當拜登總統上任時，盡管奧巴馬-拜登政府已盡最大努力取得重大進展，但我們仍未實現我們的氣候雄心，沒有明確的途徑來大量供應穩定且負擔得起的清潔能源。
太多人認為我們必須在經濟增長和實現氣候目標之間做出選擇。
拜登總統的看法完全不同。 正如他常說的，當他聽到“氣候”時，他會想到“工作”。 他認為，建設 21 世紀的清潔能源經濟是 21 世紀最重要的增長機遇之一——但要利用這一機遇，美國需要一種深思熟慮、切實可行的投資戰略來推動創新 ，降低成本，創造良好的就業機會。
最後，我們麵臨不平等的挑戰及其對民主的破壞。
在這裏，普遍的假設是貿易推動的增長將是包容性增長——貿易收益最終將在國家內部得到廣泛分享。 但事實是，這些收益未能惠及很多勞動人民。 美國中產階級失去了優勢，而富人卻比以往任何時候都做得更好。 隨著尖端產業向大都市地區轉移，美國製造業社區被掏空。
現在，經濟不平等的驅動因素——你們中的許多人比我更清楚——很複雜，其中包括數字革命等結構性挑戰。 但這些驅動因素中的關鍵是數十年的涓滴經濟政策——諸如遞減稅、大幅削減公共投資、不受控製的企業集中以及破壞最初建立美國中產階級的勞工運動等政策。
在奧巴馬政府期間采取不同方法的努力——包括努力通過應對氣候變化的政策、投資基礎設施、擴大社會安全網和保護工人的組織權——遭到共和黨反對派的阻撓。
坦率地說，我們的國內經濟政策也未能充分考慮到我們國際經濟政策的後果。
例如，所謂的“中國衝擊”對我們國內製造業的打擊尤為嚴重，影響巨大而持久，但沒有得到充分的預期，也沒有得到充分的應對。
這些力量共同破壞了任何強大而有彈性的民主賴以生存的社會經濟基礎。
現在，這四個挑戰並不是美國獨有的。 成熟經濟體和新興經濟體也麵臨著它們——在某些情況下比我們更尖銳。
當拜登總統上任時，他知道應對這些挑戰中的每一個挑戰的方法是恢複支持建設的經濟心態。 這是我們經濟方法的核心。 建造。 在國內和與國外的合作夥伴一起建設能力，建立複原力，建立包容性。 生產和創新的能力，以及大規模提供強大的物理和數字基礎設施和清潔能源等公共產品的能力。 抵禦自然災害和地緣政治衝擊的能力。 以及確保強大、充滿活力的美國中產階級和為世界各地的勞動人民提供更多機會的包容性。
所有這些都是我們所謂的中產階級外交政策的一部分。
第一步是在國內奠定新的基礎——采用現代美國工業戰略。
我的朋友兼前同事布賴恩•迪斯 (Brian Deese) 已經詳細地談到了這個新的產業戰略，我向你推薦他的評論，因為它們比我能就這個問題發表的任何評論都好。 但總而言之：
現代美國產業戰略確定了特定部門，這些部門是經濟增長的基礎，從國家安全的角度來看具有戰略意義，而且私營企業本身還沒有準備好進行確保我們的國家雄心所需的投資。
它在這些領域部署有針對性的公共投資，釋放私人市場、資本主義和競爭的力量和獨創性，為長期增長奠定基礎。
它有助於使美國企業能夠做美國企業最擅長的事情——創新、擴大規模和競爭。
這是關於擠入私人投資——而不是取而代之。 這是關於對對我們國家福祉至關重要的部門進行長期投資，而不是選擇贏家和輸家。
它在這個國家有著悠久的傳統。 事實上，即使“產業政策”這個詞已經過時，它仍然以某種形式悄悄地為美國發揮作用——從 DARPA 和互聯網到 NASA 和商業衛星。
現在，回顧過去幾年的進程，這一戰略的初步成果是顯著的。
據英國《金融時報》報道，自 2019 年以來，對半導體和清潔能源生產的大規模投資已經激增 20 倍，而自 8 月以來宣布的投資中，有三分之一涉及在美國投資的外國投資者。
我們估計，未來十年，拜登總統議程中的公共資本和私人投資總額將達到約 3.5 萬億美元。
以半導體為例，它對我們今天的消費品和塑造我們未來的技術（從人工智能到量子計算再到合成生物學）都至關重要。
美國現在隻生產世界上大約 10% 的半導體，而且生產——一般來說，尤其是最先進的芯片——在地理上集中在其他地方。
這造成了嚴重的經濟風險和國家安全漏洞。 因此，多虧了兩黨的 CHIPS 和科學法案，我們已經看到對美國半導體行業的投資出現了數量級的增長。 現在還為時尚早。
或者考慮一下關鍵礦物——清潔能源未來的支柱。 如今，美國僅生產滿足當前電動汽車需求所需的4% 的鋰、13% 的鈷、0% 的鎳和 0% 的石墨。 與此同時，超過 80% 的關鍵礦物由中國這個國家加工。
清潔能源供應鏈麵臨被武器化的風險，就像 1970 年代的石油或 2022 年的歐洲天然氣一樣。因此，通過對《降低通貨膨脹法》和《兩黨基礎設施法》的投資，我們正在采取行動。
與此同時，在國內建造一切都是不可行或不可取的。 我們的目標不是自給自足——而是我們供應鏈的彈性和安全性。
現在，建設我們的國內能力是起點。 但這種努力超出了我們的邊界。 這讓我想到了我們戰略的第二步：與我們的合作夥伴合作，確保他們也在建設能力、彈性和包容性。
我們向他們傳達的信息始終如一：我們將在國內堅定不移地推行我們的產業戰略——但我們明確承諾不會將我們的朋友拋在後麵。 我們希望他們加入我們。 事實上，我們需要他們加入我們。
麵對經濟和地緣政治現實，創建一個安全和可持續的經濟將需要我們所有的盟友和合作夥伴做更多的事情——沒有時間可以浪費了。 對於半導體和清潔能源等行業，無論是公共投資還是私人投資，我們都遠未達到全球所需投資的飽和點。
最終，我們的目標是建立一個強大、有彈性和領先的技術產業基地，美國及其誌同道合的合作夥伴，無論是成熟經濟體還是新興經濟體，都可以共同投資和依賴。
上個月，拜登總統和歐盟委員會主席烏爾蘇拉•馮德萊恩在華盛頓談到了這一點。
他們發布了一個非常重要的聲明，如果你還沒有讀過，我真的鼓勵你讀一讀。 聲明的核心內容如下：對我們各自工業能力的大膽公共投資需要成為能源轉型的核心。 馮德萊恩總統和拜登總統承諾共同努力，確保未來的供應鏈具有彈性、安全並反映我們的價值觀——包括勞工價值觀。
他們在聲明中列出了實現這些目標的實際步驟——比如在大西洋兩岸調整各自的清潔能源激勵措施，並就關鍵礦物和電池的供應鏈展開談判。
不久之後，拜登總統訪問了加拿大。 他和賈斯汀•特魯多總理成立了一個工作組，以加速加拿大和美國之間的合作，以實現完全相同的目標：確保我們的清潔能源供應並在邊界兩邊創造中產階級就業機會。
就在幾天之後，美國和日本簽署了一項協議，以深化我們在關鍵礦產供應鏈方麵的合作。
因此，我們正在利用《降低通貨膨脹法案》建立一個植根於北美供應鏈並延伸至歐洲、日本和其他地方的清潔能源製造生態係統。
這就是我們將 IRA 從摩擦之源轉變為力量和可靠性之源的方式。 我想您會在下個月於廣島舉行的G7 峰會上聽到更多相關信息。
現在，我們與合作夥伴的合作不僅僅局限於清潔能源。
例如，我們正在與歐洲、韓國、日本、台灣和印度的合作夥伴合作，以協調我們的半導體激勵措施。
分析師對未來三年半導體投資地點的預測發生了巨大變化，美國和主要合作夥伴現在位居榜首。
我還要強調，我們與合作夥伴的合作不僅限於先進的工業民主國家。
從根本上說，我們必須——而且我們打算——消除美國最重要的夥伴關係隻與成熟經濟體建立的觀念。 不僅要說出來，還要證明。 在印度證明這一點——從氫到半導體的一切。 用安哥拉證明這一點——使用無碳太陽能。 與印度尼西亞一起證明這一點——關於其公正的能源轉型夥伴關係。 與巴西一起證明這一點——氣候友好型增長。
這將我帶到了我們戰略的第三步：超越傳統的貿易協議，轉向專注於我們時代核心挑戰的創新型新型國際經濟夥伴關係。
1990 年代的主要國際經濟項目是降低關稅。 平均而言，美國適用的關稅稅率在 1990 年代幾乎減半。 今天，即 2023 年，我們的貿易加權平均關稅稅率為 2.4%——這在曆史上和相對於其他國家而言都是較低的。
當然，這些關稅並不統一，許多其他國家的關稅水平仍有待降低。 正如戴大使所說，“我們沒有宣誓過市場自由化。” 我們確實打算尋求現代貿易協定。 但是，根據關稅削減來定義或衡量我們的整個政策忽略了一些重要的事情。
問我們現在的貿易政策是什麽——狹隘地定義為進一步降低關稅的計劃——是一個錯誤的問題。 正確的問題是：貿易如何融入我們的國際經濟政策，它試圖解決什麽問題？
2020年代和2030年代的項目不同於1990年代的項目。
我們知道我們今天需要解決的問題：創建多樣化和有彈性的供應鏈。 為公正的清潔能源轉型和可持續的經濟增長調動公共和私人投資。 一路創造好工作，支持家庭的工作。 確保我們數字基礎設施的信任、安全和開放。 停止企業稅收中的逐底競爭。 加強對勞動和環境的保護。 打擊腐敗。 這是一套與簡單地降低關稅不同的基本優先事項。
我們設計了一項雄心勃勃的區域經濟倡議——印太經濟框架——的要素，以關注這些問題——並解決這些問題。 我們正在與 13 個印太國家就章節進行談判，以加快清潔能源轉型、實施稅收公平和打擊腐敗、為技術製定高標準，並確保關鍵商品和投入品的供應鏈更具彈性。
我說得具體一點。 如果在 COVID 對我們的供應鏈造成嚴重破壞並且工廠閑置時 IPEF 已經到位，我們本可以更快地做出反應——公司和政府一起——轉向實時采購和共享數據的新選擇。 這就是在這個問題上采用新方法的樣子——就像在許多其他問題上一樣。
我們與我們在美洲的一些主要合作夥伴共同發起的新的“美洲經濟繁榮夥伴關係”旨在實現相同的基本目標。
同時，通過美國-歐盟貿易和技術委員會，通過我們與日本和韓國的三邊協調，我們正在協調我們的產業戰略以相互補充，避免各方競相競相競爭 目標。
一些人看過這些倡議後說，“但它們不是傳統的自由貿易協定。” 這就是重點。 對於我們今天要解決的問題，傳統的模式是行不通的。
事後政策補丁和再分配的模糊承諾的時代已經結束。 我們需要一種新方法。
簡而言之：在當今世界，貿易政策不僅僅是降低關稅，而且貿易政策需要完全融入我們的經濟戰略，無論是在國內還是在國外。
與此同時，拜登政府正在製定一項新的全球勞工戰略，通過外交促進工人的權利，我們將在未來幾周公布這一戰略。
它建立在 USMCA 中的快速反應勞工機製等工具之上，該機製強製執行工人協會和集體談判的權利。 事實上，就在本周，我們通過一項改善工作條件的協議解決了我們的第八個案例——這對墨西哥工人和美國的競爭力來說是雙贏的。
我們現在正在繼續領導與 136 個國家達成曆史性協議，以最終結束損害中產階級和勞動人民的公司稅逐底競爭。 現在國會需要貫徹實施立法，我們正在努力讓他們做到這一點。
我們正在采取另一種我們認為是未來重要藍圖的新方法——以前所未有的方式將貿易與氣候聯係起來。 我們正在與歐盟談判的全球鋼鐵和鋁安排可能是第一個解決排放強度和產能過剩問題的主要貿易協議。 如果我們可以將其應用於鋼鐵和鋁，我們也可以看看它如何應用於其他行業。 我們可以幫助創造一個良性循環，並確保我們的競爭對手不會通過破壞地球來獲得優勢。
現在，對於那些提出問題的人來說，拜登政府仍然致力於世貿組織及其所基於的共同價值觀：公平競爭、公開、透明和法治。 但嚴峻的挑戰，尤其是非市場經濟實踐和政策，威脅著這些核心價值觀。 因此，這就是為什麽我們與許多其他 WTO 成員合作改革多邊貿易體係，使其有利於工人，滿足合法的國家安全利益，並解決當前 WTO 框架中未完全納入的緊迫問題，例如可持續發展 和清潔能源轉型。
總而言之，在一個被清潔能源轉型、充滿活力的新興經濟體、對供應鏈彈性的追求——數字化、人工智能和生物技術革命——所改變的世界中，遊戲是不一樣的。
我們的國際經濟政策必須適應世界的現狀，這樣我們才能建設我們想要的世界。
這讓我想到了我們戰略的第四步：動員數萬億美元的投資進入新興經濟體——采用這些國家正在自己製定的解決方案，但資本是由不同品牌的美國外交提供支持的。
我們已經發起了一項重大努力來發展多邊開發銀行，使它們能夠應對當今的挑戰。 2023 年是重要的一年。
正如耶倫國務卿概述的那樣，我們需要更新銀行的運營模式——尤其是世界銀行，但也包括區域開發銀行。 我們需要擴大他們的資產負債表，以應對氣候變化、流行病、脆弱性和衝突。 我們必須擴大低收入和中等收入國家獲得優惠、高質量融資的渠道，因為它們應對的挑戰跨越任何一個國家的邊界。
上個月我們在這個議程上看到了提前支付的定金，但我們需要做更多的事情。
我們對 Ajay Banga 在世界銀行的新領導層實現這一願景感到非常興奮。
在我們發展多邊開發銀行的同時，我們還發起了一項重大努力，以縮小低收入和中等收入國家的基礎設施差距。 我們將其稱為全球基礎設施和投資夥伴關係 (PGII)。 從現在到本十年末，PGII 將動員數千億美元用於能源、物理和數字基礎設施融資。
與“一帶一路”倡議中的融資不同，PGII 下的項目透明、高標準，服務於長期、包容和可持續的增長。 在這項倡議發起後不到一年的時間裏，我們已經對從為電動汽車提供動力所需的礦山到全球海底電信電纜等方方麵麵進行了大量投資。
與此同時，我們也致力於解決越來越多的脆弱國家麵臨的債務困境。 我們需要看到真正的解脫，而不僅僅是“假裝”。 我們需要看到所有雙邊官方和私人債權人分擔負擔。
這包括中國，它一直致力於通過向新興世界提供大量貸款來建立影響力，而且幾乎總是附帶條件。我們同意許多其他人的觀點，即中國現在需要加強作為援助債務壓力國家的建設性力量。
最後，我們用小院子和高圍欄保護我們的基礎技術。
正如我之前所說，我們的職責是引領新一波數字革命——確保下一代技術為我們的民主和安全服務，而不是反對。
我們對向中國出口最先進的半導體技術實施了精心製定的限製。 這些限製的前提是直接的國家安全問題。 主要盟友和合作夥伴紛紛效仿，這與他們自身的安全擔憂一致。
我們還在與國家安全相關的關鍵領域加強對外國投資的審查。 我們在解決與核心國家安全關係相關的敏感技術的對外投資方麵取得了進展。
這些是量身定製的措施。 它們並不像北京所說的那樣是“技術封鎖”。 他們不針對新興經濟體。他們專注於一小部分技術和少數幾個意圖在軍事上挑戰我們的國家。
更廣泛地談談中國。 正如馮德萊恩總統最近所說，我們要去風險化和多元化，而不是脫鉤。 我們將繼續投資於我們自己的能力，以及安全、有彈性的供應鏈。 我們將繼續為我們的工人和公司爭取一個公平的競爭環境，並防止濫用職權。
我們的出口管製仍將狹隘地集中在可能使軍事平衡傾斜的技術上。 我們隻是確保美國和盟國的技術不會被用來對付我們。 我們沒有切斷貿易。
事實上，美國繼續與中國保持著非常重要的貿易和投資關係。 美中雙邊貿易去年創下新紀錄。
現在，當你從經濟上拉遠距離時，我們在多個維度上與中國競爭，但我們並不是在尋求對抗或衝突。 我們希望以負責任的方式管理競爭，並尋求在力所能及的範圍內與中國合作。 拜登總統明確表示，美國和中國可以而且應該共同應對氣候等全球性挑戰，例如宏觀經濟穩定、衛生安全和糧食安全。
負責任地管理競爭最終需要雙方自願。 它需要一定程度的戰略成熟度才能接受我們必須保持開放的溝通渠道，即使我們采取行動進行競爭。
正如耶倫國務卿上周就此話題發表的講話中所說，我們可以捍衛我們的國家安全利益，進行良性的經濟競爭，並在可能的情況下共同努力，但中國必須願意發揮自己的作用。
那麽，成功是什麽樣子的呢？
世界需要一個為我們的工薪階層服務、為我們的工業服務、為我們的氣候服務、為我們的國家安全服務、為世界上最貧窮和最脆弱的國家服務的國際經濟體係。
這意味著用一種鼓勵有針對性和必要投資的方法取代單一方法，重點是我在演講開頭提出的過於簡單化的假設——即使我們繼續利用 市場和整合的力量。
這意味著為世界各地的合作夥伴提供空間，以恢複政府與其選民和工人之間的契約。
這意味著將這種新方法建立在深度合作和透明度的基礎上，以確保我們的投資和合作夥伴的投資相輔相成、互惠互利。
這意味著回到我們 80 年前首次倡導的核心信念：美國應該成為充滿活力的國際金融體係的核心，使世界各地的合作夥伴能夠減少貧困並促進共同繁榮。 為世界上最脆弱的國家建立一個有效的社會安全網對我們自己的核心利益至關重要。
這也意味著建立新的規範，使我們能夠應對先進技術與國家安全交叉所帶來的挑戰，同時不阻礙更廣泛的貿易和創新。
這一戰略需要下定決心——需要堅定不移地致力於克服阻礙這個國家和我們的合作夥伴像我們過去那樣快速、高效和公平地建設的障礙。
但這是恢複中產階級、實現公正有效的清潔能源轉型、確保關鍵供應鏈安全以及通過所有這些修複對民主本身的信心的最可靠途徑。
一如既往，如果我們要取得成功，我們需要國會的全麵和兩黨合作。
我們需要國會的支持，以重振美國吸引和留住世界各地最聰明人才的獨特能力。
在我們的發展金融改革舉措中，我們需要希爾的全麵合作。
我們需要加倍投資基礎設施、創新和清潔能源。 我們的國家安全和經濟活力取決於此。
讓我結束這個。
肯尼迪總統喜歡說“水漲船高”。 多年來，涓滴經濟學的擁護者將這個短語挪用為己用。
但肯尼迪總統並沒有說對富人有利的事情就是對工人階級有利的事情。 他是說我們都在一起。
看看他接下來說的話：“如果這個國家的一部分停滯不前，那麽遲早會退潮，所有的船都會掉下來。”
這對我們國家來說是正確的。 這對我們的世界來說是正確的。 在經濟上結束，隨著時間的推移，我們將一起上升或下降。
這對我們民主製度的力量以及我們經濟的力量都是如此。
當我們在國內外推行這一戰略時，將會有合理的辯論。 這需要時間。 二戰和冷戰結束後出現的國際秩序不是一夜之間建立起來的。 這個也不會。
但是，我們可以一起努力提升所有美國人民、社區和行業，我們也可以與全球各地的朋友和合作夥伴一起做同樣的事情。
這是拜登政府必須而且將努力實現的願景。
當我們在經濟、國家安全和民主的交叉點做出政策決定時，這就是我們的指導方針。
這就是我們不僅要作為一個政府，而且要與美國的每一個組成部分，以及在政府內外合作夥伴的支持和幫助下開展的工作。
結尾
FILE PHOTO: U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan speaks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 24, 2023. REUTERS/Kevin LamarqueREUTERS
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Thursday the United States is not looking to decouple its economy from the Chinese economy, saying, "We're not cutting off trade."
Speaking at the Brookings Institution, Sullivan said China should step up as a constructive force in assisting heavily indebted countries. He said Washington does not want China to use American technology against the United States but does not plan to end economic ties with Beijing.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalala, Doina Chiacu and Steve Holland; Editing by Chris Reese)
Full text April 27, 2023
Remarks by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Renewing American Economic Leadership at the Brookings Institution
AS DELIVERED
I want to start by thanking all of you for indulging a National Security Advisor to discuss economics.
As most of you know, Secretary Yellen gave an important speech just down the street last week on our economic policy with respect to China. Today I’d like to zoom out to our broader international economic policy, particularly as it relates to President Biden’s core commitment—indeed, to his daily direction to us—to more deeply integrate domestic policy and foreign policy.
After the Second World War, the United States led a fragmented world to build a new international economic order. It lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. It sustained thrilling technological revolutions. And it helped the United States and many other nations around the world achieve new levels of prosperity.
But the last few decades revealed cracks in those foundations. A shifting global economy left many working Americans and their communities behind.
A financial crisis shook the middle class. A pandemic exposed the fragility of our supply chains. A changing climate threatened lives and livelihoods. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underscored the risks of overdependence.
So this moment demands that we forge a new consensus.
That’s why the United States, under President Biden, is pursuing a modern industrial and innovation strategy—both at home and with partners around the world. One that invests in the sources of our own economic and technological strength, that promotes diversified and resilient global supply chains, that sets high standards for everything from labor and the environment to trusted technology and good governance, and that deploys capital to deliver on public goods like climate and health.
Now, the idea that a “new Washington consensus,” as some people have referred to it, is somehow America alone, or America and the West to the exclusion of others, is just flat wrong.
This strategy will build a fairer, more durable global economic order, for the benefit of ourselves and for people everywhere.
So today, what I want to do is lay out what we are endeavoring to do. And I’ll start by defining the challenges as we see them—the challenges that we face. To take them on, we’ve had to revisit some old assumptions. Then I’ll walk through, step by step, how our approach is tailored to meeting those challenges.
When President Biden came into office more than two years ago, the country faced, from our perspective, four fundamental challenges.
First, America’s industrial base had been hollowed out.
The vision of public investment that had energized the American project in the postwar years—and indeed for much of our history—had faded. It had given way to a set of ideas that championed tax cutting and deregulation, privatization over public action, and trade liberalization as an end in itself.
There was one assumption at the heart of all of this policy: that markets always allocate capital productively and efficiently—no matter what our competitors did, no matter how big our shared challenges grew, and no matter how many guardrails we took down.
Now, no one—certainly not me—is discounting the power of markets. But in the name of oversimplified market efficiency, entire supply chains of strategic goods—along with the industries and jobs that made them—moved overseas. And the postulate that deep trade liberalization would help America export goods, not jobs and capacity, was a promise made but not kept.
Another embedded assumption was that the type of growth did not matter. All growth was good growth. So, various reforms combined and came together to privilege some sectors of the economy, like finance, while other essential sectors, like semiconductors and infrastructure, atrophied. Our industrial capacity—which is crucial to any country’s ability to continue to innovate—took a real hit.
The shocks of a global financial crisis and a global pandemic laid bare the limits of these prevailing assumptions.
The second challenge we faced was adapting to a new environment defined by geopolitical and security competition, with important economic impacts.
Much of the international economic policy of the last few decades had relied upon the premise that economic integration would make nations more responsible and open, and that the global order would be more peaceful and cooperative—that bringing countries into the rules-based order would incentivize them to adhere to its rules.
It didn’t turn out that way. In some cases it did, and in lot of cases it did not.
By the time President Biden came into office, we had to contend with the reality that a large non-market economy had been integrated into the international economic order in a way that posed considerable challenges.
The People’s Republic of China continued to subsidize at a massive scale both traditional industrial sectors, like steel, as well as key industries of the future, like clean energy, digital infrastructure, and advanced biotechnologies. America didn’t just lose manufacturing—we eroded our competitiveness in critical technologies that would define the future.
Economic integration didn’t stop China from expanding its military ambitions in the region, or stop Russia from invading its democratic neighbors. Neither country had become more responsible or cooperative.
And ignoring economic dependencies that had built up over the decades of liberalization had become really perilous—from energy uncertainty in Europe to supply-chain vulnerabilities in medical equipment, semiconductors, and critical minerals. These were the kinds of dependencies that could be exploited for economic or geopolitical leverage.
The third challenge we faced was an accelerating climate crisis and the urgent need for a just and efficient energy transition.
When President Biden came into office, we were falling dramatically short of our climate ambitions, without a clear pathway to abundant supplies of stable and affordable clean energy, despite the best efforts of the Obama-Biden Administration to make significant headway.
Too many people believed that we had to choose between economic growth and meeting our climate goals.
President Biden has seen things totally differently. As he’s often said, when he hears “climate,” he thinks “jobs.” He believes that building a twenty-first-century clean-energy economy is one of the most significant growth opportunities of the twenty-first century—but that to harness that opportunity, America needs a deliberate, hands-on investment strategy to pull forward innovation, drive down costs, and create good jobs.
Finally, we faced the challenge of inequality and its damage to democracy.
Here, the prevailing assumption was that trade-enabled growth would be inclusive growth—that the gains of trade would end up getting broadly shared within nations. But the fact is that those gains failed to reach a lot of working people. The American middle class lost ground while the wealthy did better than ever. And American manufacturing communities were hollowed out while cutting-edge industries moved to metropolitan areas.
Now, the drivers of economic inequality—as many of you know even better than I—are complex, and they include structural challenges like the digital revolution. But key among these drivers are decades of trickle-down economic policies—policies like regressive tax cuts, deep cuts to public investment, unchecked corporate concentration, and active measures to undermine the labor movement that initially built the American middle class.
Efforts to take a different approach during the Obama Administration—including efforts to pass policies to address climate change, invest in infrastructure, expand the social safety net, and protect workers’ rights to organize—were stymied by Republican opposition.
And frankly, our domestic economic policies also failed to fully account for the consequences of our international economic policies.
For example, the so-called “China shock” that hit pockets of our domestic manufacturing industry especially hard—with large and long-lasting impacts—wasn’t adequately anticipated and wasn’t adequately addressed as it unfolded.
And collectively, these forces had frayed the socioeconomic foundations on which any strong and resilient democracy rests.
Now, these four challenges were not unique to the United States. Established and emerging economies were confronting them, too—in some cases more acutely than we are.
When President Biden came to office, he knew the solution to each of these challenges was to restore an economic mentality that champions building. And that is the core of our economic approach. To build. To build capacity, to build resilience, to build inclusiveness, at home and with partners abroad. The capacity to produce and innovate, and to deliver public goods like strong physical and digital infrastructure and clean energy at scale. The resilience to withstand natural disasters and geopolitical shocks. And the inclusiveness to ensure a strong, vibrant American middle class and greater opportunity for working people around the world.
All of that is part of what we have called a foreign policy for the middle class.
The first step is laying a new foundation at home—with a modern American industrial strategy.
My friend and former colleague Brian Deese has spoken about this new industrial strategy at some length, and I commend his remarks to you, because they are better than any remarks I could give on the subject. But in summary:
A modern American industrial strategy identifies specific sectors that are foundational to economic growth, strategic from a national security perspective, and where private industry on its own isn’t poised to make the investments needed to secure our national ambitions.
It deploys targeted public investments in these areas that unlock the power and ingenuity of private markets, capitalism, and competition to lay a foundation for long-term growth.
It helps enable American business to do what American business does best—innovate, scale, and compete.
This is about crowding in private investment—not replacing it. It’s about making long-term investments in sectors vital to our national wellbeing—not picking winners and losers.
And it has a long tradition in this country. In fact, even as the term “industrial policy” went out of fashion, in some form it remained quietly at work for America—from DARPA and the Internet to NASA and commercial satellites.
Now, looking over the course of the last couple of years, the initial results of this strategy are remarkable.
The Financial Times has reported that large-scale investments in semiconductor and clean-energy production have already surged 20-fold since 2019, and a third of the investments announced since August involve a foreign investor investing here in the United States.
We’ve estimated that the total public capital and private investment from President Biden’s agenda will amount to some $3.5 trillion over the next decade.
Consider semiconductors, which are as essential to our consumer goods today as they are to the technologies that will shape our future, from artificial intelligence to quantum computing to synthetic biology.
America now manufactures only around 10 percent of the world’s semiconductors, and production—in general and especially when it comes to the most advanced chips—is geographically concentrated elsewhere.
This creates a critical economic risk and a national security vulnerability. So thanks to the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, we’ve already seen an orders-of-magnitude increase in investment into America’s semiconductor industry. And it’s still early days.
Or consider critical minerals—the backbone of the clean-energy future. Today, the United States produces only 4 percent of the lithium, 13 percent of the cobalt, 0 percent of the nickel, and 0 percent of the graphite required to meet current demand for electric vehicles. Meanwhile, more than 80 percent of critical minerals are processed by one country, China.
Clean-energy supply chains are at risk of being weaponized in the same way as oil in the 1970s, or natural gas in Europe in 2022. So through the investments in the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we’re taking action.
At the same time, it isn’t feasible or desirable to build everything domestically. Our objective is not autarky—it’s resilience and security in our supply chains.
Now, building our domestic capacity is the starting point. But the effort extends beyond our borders. And this brings me to the second step in our strategy: working with our partners to ensure they are building capacity, resilience, and inclusiveness, too.
Our message to them has been consistent: We will unapologetically pursue our industrial strategy at home—but we are unambiguously committed to not leaving our friends behind. We want them to join us. In fact, we need them to join us.
Creating a secure and sustainable economy in the face of the economic and geopolitical realities will require all of our allies and partners to do more—and there’s no time to lose. For industries like semiconductors and clean energy, we’re nowhere near the global saturation point of investments needed, public or private.
Ultimately, our goal is a strong, resilient, and leading-edge techno-industrial base that the United States and its like-minded partners, established and emerging economies alike, can invest in and rely upon together.
President Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen talked about this here in Washington last month.
They released a very important statement, which, if you haven’t read it, I really encourage you to read. At its heart, what the statement said was the following: bold public investments in our respective industrial capacity needs to be at the heart of the energy transition. And President von der Leyen and President Biden committed to working together to ensure that the supply chains of the future are resilient, secure, and reflective of our values—including on labor.
They laid out practical steps in the statement to achieve those goals—like aligning respective clean-energy incentives on each side of the Atlantic and launching a negotiation on supply chains for critical minerals and batteries.
Shortly after that, President Biden went to Canada. He and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau established a task force to accelerate cooperation between Canada and the United States toward exactly the same end: ensuring our clean-energy supply and creating middle-class jobs on both sides of the border.
And just a few days after that, the United States and Japan signed an agreement deepening our cooperation on critical-mineral supply chains.
So we are leveraging the Inflation Reduction Act to build a clean-energy manufacturing ecosystem rooted in supply chains here in North America, and extending to Europe, Japan, and elsewhere.
This is how we will turn the IRA from a source of friction into a source of strength and reliability. And I suspect you’ll hear more on this at the G7 Summit in Hiroshima next month.
Now, our cooperation with partners is not limited to clean energy.
For example, we’re working with partners—in Europe, the Republic of Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and India—to coordinate our approaches to semiconductor incentives.
Analyst projections on where semiconductor investments will happen over the next three years have shifted dramatically, with the United States and key partners now topping the charts.
Let me also underscore that our cooperation with partners is not limited to advanced industrial democracies.
Fundamentally, we have to—and we intend to—dispel the notion that America’s most important partnerships are only with established economies. Not just by saying it, but by proving it. Proving it with India—on everything from hydrogen to semiconductors. Proving it with Angola—on carbon-free solar power. Proving it with Indonesia—on its Just Energy Transition Partnership. Proving it with Brazil—on climate-friendly growth.
This brings me to the third step in our strategy: moving beyond traditional trade deals to innovative new international economic partnerships focused on the core challenges of our time.
The main international economic project of the 1990s was reducing tariffs. On average, applied U.S. tariff rates were nearly cut in half during the 1990s. Today, in 2023, our trade-weighted average tariff rate is 2.4 percent—which is low historically, and relative to other countries.
Of course, those tariffs aren’t uniform, and there is still work to be done bringing tariff levels down in many other countries. As Ambassador Tai has said, “We have not sworn off market liberalization.” We do intend to pursue modern trade agreements. But to define or measure our entire policy based on tariff reduction misses something important.
Asking what our trade policy is now—narrowly framed as plans to reduce tariffs further—is simply the wrong question. The right question is: how does trade fit into our international economic policy, and what problems is it seeking to solve?
The project of the 2020s and the 2030s is different from the project of the 1990s.
We know the problems we need to solve today: Creating diversified and resilient supply chains. Mobilizing public and private investment for a just clean energy transition and sustainable economic growth. Creating good jobs along the way, family-supporting jobs. Ensuring trust, safety, and openness in our digital infrastructure. Stopping a race-to-the-bottom in corporate taxation. Enhancing protections for labor and the environment. Tackling corruption. That is a different set of fundamental priorities than simply bringing down tariffs.
And we have designed the elements of an ambitious regional economic initiative, the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, to focus on those problems—and solving those problems. We’re negotiating chapters with thirteen Indo-Pacific nations that will hasten the clean-energy transition, implement tax fairness and fight corruption, set high standards for technology, and ensure more resilient supply chains for critical goods and inputs.
Let me speak a bit more concretely. Had IPEF been in place when COVID wreaked havoc on our supply chains and factories sat idling, we would have been able to react more quickly— companies and governments together— pivoting to new options for sourcing and sharing data in real-time. That’s what a new approach can look like on that issue—as on many others.
Our new Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity, launched with a number of our key partners here in the Americas, is aimed at the same basic set of objectives.
Meanwhile, through the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council, and through our trilateral coordination with Japan and Korea, we are coordinating on our industrial strategies to complement one another, and avert a race-to-the-bottom by all competing for the same targets.
Some have looked at these initiatives and said, “but they aren’t traditional FTAs.” That’s exactly the point. For the problems we are trying to solve today, the traditional model doesn’t cut it.
The era of after-the-fact policy patches and vague promises of redistribution is over. We need a new approach.
Simply put: In today’s world, trade policy needs to be about more than tariff reduction, and trade policy needs to be fully integrated into our economic strategy, at home and abroad.
At the same time, the Biden Administration is developing a new global labor strategy that advances workers’ rights through diplomacy, and we will be unveiling this strategy in the weeks ahead.
It builds on tools like the rapid-response labor mechanism in USMCA that enforces workers’ association and collective-bargaining rights. Just this week, in fact, we resolved our eighth case with an agreement that improved working conditions—a win-win for Mexican workers and American competitiveness.
We’re in the process now of continuing to lead a historic agreement with 136 countries to finally end the race-to-the-bottom on corporate taxes that hurt middle-class and working people. Now Congress needs to follow through with the implementing legislation, and we are working them to do exactly that.
And we’re taking another kind of new approach that we think a critical blueprint for the future—linking trade and climate in a way that has never been done before. The Global Arrangement on Steel and Aluminum that we’re negotiating with the European Union could be the first major trade deal to tackle both emissions intensity and over-capacity. And if we can apply it to steel and aluminum, we can look at how it applies to other sectors as well. We can help create a virtuous cycle and ensure our competitors aren’t gaining an advantage by degrading the planet.
Now, for those who have posed the question, the Biden Administration is still committed to the WTO and the shared values upon which it is based: fair competition, openness, transparency, and the rule of law. But serious challenges, most notably nonmarket economic practices and policies, threaten those core values. So that’s why we’re working with so many other WTO members to reform the multilateral trading system so that it benefits workers, accommodates legitimate national security interests, and confronts pressing issues that aren’t fully embedded in the current WTO framework, like sustainable development and the clean-energy transition.
In sum, in a world being transformed by that clean energy transition, by dynamic emerging economies, by a quest for supply chain resilience—by digitization, by artificial intelligence, and by a revolution in biotechnology—the game is not the same.
Our international economic policy has to adapt to the world as it is, so we can build the world that we want.
This brings me to the fourth step in our strategy: mobilizing trillions in investment into emerging economies—with solutions that those countries are fashioning on their own, but with capital enabled by a different brand of U.S. diplomacy.
We’ve launched a major effort to evolve the multilateral development banks so they are up to the challenges of today. 2023 is a big year for this.
As Secretary Yellen has outlined, we need to update the banks’ operating models—especially the World Bank but the regional development banks as well. We need to stretch their balance sheets to address climate change, pandemics, and fragility and conflict. And we have to expand access to concessional, high-quality finance for low income and for middle-income countries as they deal with challenges that span beyond any single nation’s borders.
We saw an early down payment on this agenda last month, but we will need to do much more.
And we’re very excited for Ajay Banga’s new leadership at the World Bank to make this vision a reality.
At the same time as we are evolving the multilateral development banks, we’ve also launched a major effort to close the infrastructure gap in low- and middle-income countries. We call it the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment—PGII. PGII will mobilize hundreds of billions of dollars in energy, physical, and digital infrastructure financing between now and the end of the decade.
And unlike the financing that comes in the Belt and Road Initiative, projects under PGII are transparent and high-standard and in service of long-term, inclusive, and sustainable growth. And in just under a year since this initiative launched, we have already delivered significant investments in everything from the mines needed to power electric vehicles to global subsea telecom cables.
At the same time, we’re also committed to addressing the debt distress faced by an increasingly large number of vulnerable countries. We need to see genuine relief, not just “extending and pretending.” And we need to see all bilateral official and private creditors share the burden.
That includes China, which has worked to build its influence through massive lending to the emerging world, almost always with strings attached. We share the view of many others that China now needs to step up as a constructive force in assisting debt-stressed countries.
Finally, we are protecting our foundational technologies with a small yard and high fence.
As I’ve argued before, our charge is to usher in a new wave of the digital revolution—one that ensures that next-generation technologies work for, not against, our democracies and our security.
We’ve implemented carefully tailored restrictions on the most advanced semiconductor technology exports to China. Those restrictions are premised on straightforward national security concerns. Key allies and partners have followed suit, consistent with their own security concerns.
We’re also enhancing the screening of foreign investments in critical areas relevant to national security. And we’re making progress in addressing outbound investments in sensitive technologies with a core national security nexus.
These are tailored measures. They are not, as Beijing says, a “technology blockade.” They are not targeting emerging economies. They are focused on a narrow slice of technology and a small number of countries intent on challenging us militarily.
A word on China more broadly. As President von der Leyen put it recently, we are for de-risking and diversifying, not decoupling. We’ll keep investing in our own capacities, and in secure, resilient supply chains. We’ll keep pushing for a level playing field for our workers and companies and defending against abuses.
Our export controls will remain narrowly focused on technology that could tilt the military balance. We are simply ensuring that U.S. and allied technology is not used against us. We are not cutting off trade.
In fact, the United States continues to have a very substantial trade and investment relationship with China. Bilateral trade between the United States and China set a new record last year.
Now, when you zoom out from economics, we are competing with China on multiple dimensions, but we are not looking for confrontation or conflict. We’re looking to manage competition responsibly and seeking to work together with China where we can. President Biden has made clear that the United States and China can and should work together on global challenges like climate, like macroeconomic stability, health security, and food security.
Managing competition responsibly ultimately takes two willing parties. It requires a degree of strategic maturity to accept that we must maintain open lines of communication even as we take actions to compete.
As Secretary Yellen said last week in her speech on this topic, we can defend our national security interests, have a healthy economic competition, and work together where possible, but China has to be willing to play its part.
So, what does success look like?
The world needs an international economic system that works for our wage-earners, works for our industries, works for our climate, works for our national security, and works for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries.
That means replacing a singular approach focused the oversimplified assumptions that I set out at the top of my speech with one that encourages targeted and necessary investments in places that private markets are ill-suited to address on their own—even as we continue to harness the power of markets and integration.
It means providing space for partners around the world to restore the compacts between governments and their voters and workers.
It means grounding this new approach in deep cooperation and transparency to ensure that our investments and those of partners are mutually reinforcing and beneficial.
And it means returning to the core belief we first championed 80 years ago: that America should be at the heart of a vibrant, international financial system that enables partners around the world to reduce poverty and enhance shared prosperity. And that a functioning social safety net for the world’s most vulnerable countries is essential to our own core interests.
It also means building new norms that allow us to address the challenges posed by the intersection of advanced technology and national security, without obstructing broader trade and innovation.
This strategy will take resolve—it will take a dedicated commitment to overcoming the barriers that have kept this country and our partners from building rapidly, efficiently, and fairly as we were able to do in the past.
But it is the surest path to restoring the middle class, to producing a just and effective clean-energy transition, to securing critical supply chains, and, through all of this, to repairing faith in democracy itself.
As always, we need the full and bipartisan partnership of Congress if we are going to succeed.
We need support from Congress to revive America’s unique capacity to attract and retain the brightest talent from around the world.
We need the Hill’s full partnership in our reform initiatives in development finance.
And we need to double down on our investments in infrastructure, innovation, and clean energy. Our national security and our economic vitality depend on it.
Let me close with this.
President Kennedy was fond of saying that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” Over the years, advocates of trickle-down economics appropriated this phrase for their own uses.
But President Kennedy wasn’t saying what’s good for the wealthy is good for the working class. He was saying we’re all in this together.
And look at what he said next: “If one section of the country is standing still, then sooner or later a dropping tide drops all the boats.”
That’s true for our country. That’s true for our world. End economically, over time, we’re going to rise—or fall—together.
And that goes for the strength of our democracies as well as for the strength of our economies.
As we pursue this strategy at home and abroad, there will be reasonable debate. And this is going to take time. The international order that emerged after the end of the Second World War and then the Cold War were not built overnight. Neither will this one.
But together, we can work to lift up all of America’s people, communities, and industries, and we can do the same with our friends and partners everywhere around the globe as well.
This is a vision the Biden Administration must and will fight to achieve.
This is what is guiding us as we make our policy decisions at the intersection of economics, national security, and democracy.
And this is the work that we will do not just as a government, but with every element of the United States, and with the support and help of partners both in government and out of government around the world.
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