New CNAS Report: "Rebuild: Toolkit for a New American Industrial Policy"

Washington, September 8, 2022—Today, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) released a new report, "Rebuild: Toolkit for a New American Industrial Policy" from authors Emily Kilcrease, senior fellow and director of the CNAS Energy, Economics, and Security Program, and Emily Jin, research assistant for the CNAS Energy, Economics, and Security Program.

The report lays out the tools available to the U.S. government for implementing industrial policy effectively, categorizing three separate types of industrial policy interventions:

1. Defensive industrial policies that address economic or security harms caused by external economic actors.
   
2. Proactive industrial policies that support cutting-edge technological development and the competitiveness of specific sectors.
   
3. Emergency response industrial policies that bolster America’s crisis response capability.

The toolkit analysis notes the difficult tradeoffs that policymakers must face when assessing the practicality or effectiveness of deploying any particular tool or set of tools.

"Policymakers must promote the efficiency and productivity gains of a competitive open market while also seeking resilient and secure supply chains, fair and reciprocal trading relations, and uninterrupted access to those goods and services essential to the national defense, critical infrastructure, and smooth functioning of the society writ large," write the authors.

"Rebuild" is published as part of the U.S. National Industrial Policy Strategy project at CNAS and builds on analysis and insights from the previous CNAS publications, "Reboot: Framework for a New American Industrial Policy,” “Regenerate: Biotechnology and U.S. Industrial Policy," and "Reimagine: Clean Energy Technology and U.S. Industrial Policy." The project is developing an intellectual framework for industrial policy in the American context, in an era of strategic competition with technology at its center. The goal of the project is to pave the way for enhanced and sustained American economic competitiveness and technological leadership.

Read the full report here.

For more information or to schedule an interview with the report author, please contact Cameron Edinburgh at [email protected]