Financial and economic crises, pandemics, border closures, supply chain disruptions, wars, political uncertainty have fundamentally changed the way governments view economic development. Broad-based government interventions are now the order of the day. Many names have been given to the emerging new economics of in-tervention: “homeland economics,” the “new productivism paradigm,” “supply side progressivism,” “neomercantilism,” “new industrial policy,” or “Bidenomics”—in short, for the purposes of the article: “new industrialism.” Industrial policy is pro-liferating all over the world. The U.S. government is leading the trend of adopting such policies in an effort to boost domestic industrial production. Describing this strategy as “industrial” was as unexpected as the adoption of a government inter-vention policy. In a further surprising move, U.S. offcials speak about integrating domestic industrial policy with foreign trade policy as part of one “broader international economic policy.” Calls for an “alternative to the WTO” have also been repeatedly voiced. A “new internationalism” is emerging.
These developments are unfolding against the backdrop of an ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China—probably the most dramatic economic event of the last decades. The trade war between the two superpowers is morphing into a tech war. New industrial and trade policies primarily focus on maintaining, advancing, and developing new comparative advantages in the race for digital technology dominance. Economic statecraft, both as an ideology and as a tool in foreign affairs, is also becoming mainstream. New international economic agreements and new international marketcrafting refect these changes.