"We aren't leveraging this great economic engine, the strongest economy in the world. And yet we have this totally weak response. We import $500 billion a year more in products than we export"
About this Quote
Jennifer Granholm warns that the United States, despite possessing the worlds most powerful consumer market and financial system, is failing to turn that strength into productive capacity and export power. The statistic about importing roughly $500 billion more than it exports spotlights the chronic U.S. goods trade deficit, a symptom of an economy that consumes more manufactured products than it makes. For someone who built her political identity in Michigan, the heartbeat of American manufacturing, the concern is not just numbers on a ledger but the erosion of industrial capability, jobs, and the know-how embedded in supply chains.
The phrase weak response targets decades of policy complacency: a tendency to rely on market forces alone while rivals pursued active industrial strategies. Offshoring, underinvestment in workforce training and infrastructure, and the letting go of key supply chains left the country dependent on imports for everything from electronics to clean energy components. Services surpluses soften the aggregate trade picture, but they do not replace the strategic value of advanced manufacturing or the resilience that comes from making critical goods at home.
Leveraging the engine implies using the nations scale and purchasing power to shape markets. That can mean public procurement that seeds domestic industries, export finance that helps firms compete abroad, strong trade enforcement, and sustained investment in R&D, apprenticeships, and modern factories. Granholm has long tied this to the energy transition, arguing that clean energy should be made in America so the jobs and intellectual property stay here. The recent embrace of industrial policy, from battery and semiconductor incentives to Buy American rules, reflects the very shift her words press for.
The deeper message is about agency. A rich market without strategy leaks value; a great engine without traction spins in place. Closing the gap between potential and performance demands deliberate policy to convert demand into production, imports into capacity, and consumption into lasting competitiveness.
The phrase weak response targets decades of policy complacency: a tendency to rely on market forces alone while rivals pursued active industrial strategies. Offshoring, underinvestment in workforce training and infrastructure, and the letting go of key supply chains left the country dependent on imports for everything from electronics to clean energy components. Services surpluses soften the aggregate trade picture, but they do not replace the strategic value of advanced manufacturing or the resilience that comes from making critical goods at home.
Leveraging the engine implies using the nations scale and purchasing power to shape markets. That can mean public procurement that seeds domestic industries, export finance that helps firms compete abroad, strong trade enforcement, and sustained investment in R&D, apprenticeships, and modern factories. Granholm has long tied this to the energy transition, arguing that clean energy should be made in America so the jobs and intellectual property stay here. The recent embrace of industrial policy, from battery and semiconductor incentives to Buy American rules, reflects the very shift her words press for.
The deeper message is about agency. A rich market without strategy leaks value; a great engine without traction spins in place. Closing the gap between potential and performance demands deliberate policy to convert demand into production, imports into capacity, and consumption into lasting competitiveness.
Quote Details
| Topic | Money |
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