▲ | mlyle 3 days ago | |
I think there's surely a little bit of a middle ground? Subsidizing and protecting local production has a cost: there are gains from trade and operating less efficiently makes everyone's standard of living goes down. But you don't need to go 100% into protectionism. You can ensure that you have enough domestic industry to - better weather changes and disruptions - have a starting knowledge and capital base to use to ramp up production if you have to. Just having a few percent of domestic demand for advanced ICs covered by local production is enough to make the worst international shocks much softer. Critical needs can still get filled. So a certain amount of subsidy can make sense. |