Jonas Nahm
@jonasnahm.com
Associate Professor at Hopkins/SAIS. Former White House industrial strategy economist. Industrial policy, trade, climate, economic security. Views my own. DC | HNL. 🏳️🌈
Bush and Cornyn are picking which trees to save while helping torch the forest — funding the Republicans they respect still means funding a Senate majority run by the ones they don't. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/21/u...
George W. Bush and Cornyn Leave Out Paxton as They Raise Cash for Senate Candidates
The former president and Texas senator are headlining a fund-raiser in Dallas for top Republican Senate candidates. Not included: Ken Paxton, the nominee in their own state.
nytimes.com
1/ Von der Leyen just offered Canada "associate membership" in the EU in her State of the Union address. Carney was in the chamber. Standing ovation. Perhaps the clearest sign yet that some countries are actively trying to build a new architecture for global trade.
28th state rebuke to the 51st state talk coming from the Trump admin. Lots of practical hurdles and questions about scope of EU partnership, but a clear signal in favor of stability and predictability. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/w...
E.U. Offers to Make Canada ‘Associate Member’ as U.S. Ties Weaken for Both
Canada and the European Union have been confronting an increasingly challenging relationship with the United States under President Trump.
nytimes.com
Jonas Nahm@jonasnahm.com · 4w ago1/ New piece in Foreign Affairs on why EU bureaucracy — long a favorite punchline — turns out to be a hidden source of power. www.foreignaffairs.com/europe/europ...
The week my @foreignaffairs.com piece on Europe's hidden trade advantage published, the WSJ reports Canada is exploring a "unique alliance" with the EU — after walking away from US trade talks in August. The argument, unfolding in real time. www.wsj.com/world/europe...
Exclusive | Mark Carney’s Audacious Bid to Make Canada an ‘Associate Member’ of the EU
As trade talks with the U.S. collapse, prime minister pursues a major—and risky—pivot to Europe; an Ottawa book club plays its part.
wsj.com
Jonas Nahm@jonasnahm.com · 4w ago1/ New piece in Foreign Affairs on why EU bureaucracy — long a favorite punchline — turns out to be a hidden source of power. www.foreignaffairs.com/europe/europ...
1/ New piece in Foreign Affairs on why EU bureaucracy — long a favorite punchline — turns out to be a hidden source of power. www.foreignaffairs.com/europe/europ...
Europe’s Hidden Trade Advantage
Slow and steady wins the negotiation.
foreignaffairs.com
1/ The Connected Vehicle Security Act frames Chinese EV competition as a security and unfair-trade problem. That framing assumes US auto decline is being done to the industry, rather than coming from problems the industry hasn't fixed on its own. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/31/b...
1/ The FCC added robots to its Covered List. New foreign humanoids, quadrupeds, even vacuums and mowers now need US assembly and 65% domestic content by value to sell here. That threshold rises to 75% in 2029.
1/ The New York Times has a piece out on humanoid robots coming to car factories, at BMW, Hyundai, Mercedes. I am skeptical and think this is mostly not going to work as industrial automation, and the economics explain why. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/11/b...
1/ On July 28 the FCC added advanced robotic devices and power inverters to its Covered List, the roster of equipment judged an unacceptable national security risk. New models can no longer get the FCC authorization required to be sold in the US.
1/ The NEIS Center has been publishing on industrial strategy for a year now. My own take on where the research has landed: some questions we've made real progress on, some assumptions that shifted, and some genuinely new questions. neiscenter.substack.com/p/green-indu...
Green Industrial Strategy: What a Year Has Taught Us
The NEIS Center's Jonas Nahm reflects on how our research has enhanced our understanding of industrial strategy, and what's to come.
neiscenter.substack.com
1/ The Economist has a piece on Chinese firms selling off US solar/battery assets after the FEOC rules kicked in. It documents the fire sale well but misses what's actually being bought and sold. www.economist.com/china/2026/0...
16. CEA alum @jonasnahm.com and @danieldrisc.com turn to the question of America's growth model - and how different clean production strategies can lean into it, or may need to tilt against it. They call for an honest reckoning with the trade-offs of either. rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...
Decarbonize America’s Growth Model
How the U.S. growth model shapes climate and industrial policy, and why balancing domestic manufacturing with consumer demand is key to decarbonization.
rooseveltinstitute.org
1/ Beijing just put out a white paper defending itself against overcapacity charges. It's worth reading — not because it settles the debate, but because it shows how much work that one phrase has been doing for the West, and how differently we should be treating its parts.
1/ Last Friday Trump replaced the expired IEEPA-based tariffs with new 10-12.5% tariffs on 60 countries — this time under Section 301, citing failure to police forced labor in supply chains.
The greedflation critique of 2020-23 is fine on its own terms, I just don't think it tells us much about what's happening now.
Benjamin Braun@benbraun.social · 3mo agoExceptionally illuminating @adamtooze.bsky.social today. The chart, from a 2025 @somoamsterdam.bsky.social report, says it all: European carmakers went on a sellers' inflation binge at the worst possible moment (i.e., the moment Chinese competitors geared up to lower prices and take market share).
1/ Trump's OSTP just dropped "A New Golden Age" — a big vision for reforming US science: less bureaucracy, more risk-taking, DARPA-style bold bets. Sounds great. Except it's landing inside an administration whose actual actions look nothing like it. www.whitehouse.gov/science/#cover
1/ Trump signed 50% tariffs on Canada today under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930. Worth walking through the legal mechanics, the USMCA leverage play behind it, and what it costs.
1/ The USMCA — nearly $2 trillion in annual North American trade — hits its renewal deadline July 1. US-Mexico talks only started in May, with a third round scheduled for July 20. A decision by July 1 is not happening.
1/ The USMCA — nearly $2 trillion in annual North American trade — hits its renewal deadline July 1. US-Mexico talks only started in May, with a third round scheduled for July 20. A decision by July 1 is not happening.
1/ Good interview with John Minnich on the history of China's technology transfer policies and what western governments might learn from them today. A few takeaways: www.ft.com/content/6f53...
Good thread about how the #green coalition has now added people who care about #affordability, the #economy #nationalsecurity, and sticking it to petro-dictators. #climatesolutions #climate #cleantech
Jonas Nahm@jonasnahm.com · 4mo ago1/ The purpose of green industrial policy has inverted. It used to pay for a public good: clean energy that cost more, benefiting everyone. Now it captures advantages a country keeps for itself. That shift, from a shared cost to a prize seized, is the story of the transition.
Seeing the inversion at work in energy/transportation is enormously motivating for me, as someone looking at built environment, industry, ag, etc. Things like regen ag halving fertilizer cost are showing that it will happen across the board. Not as fast as I'd have liked, but it's happening.
1/ The purpose of green industrial policy has inverted. It used to pay for a public good: clean energy that cost more, benefiting everyone. Now it captures advantages a country keeps for itself. That shift, from a shared cost to a prize seized, is the story of the transition.
1/ China's May trade data just complicated the story Washington tells itself about decoupling. Exports to the US jumped 35% — the fastest pace in five years — led by the inputs feeding America's own AI build-out.
1/ Amid all the hype around China's 15th FYP, worth revisiting this CTVC piece to understand how clean tech financing actually works in China — and what it means for Western strategy. www.ctvc.co/an-insiders-...
1/ New report from Roosevelt pushing back on "manufacturing doomerism." The sector data is important and underappreciated. But I think it also inadvertently makes a case it doesn't intend to make. rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...
Against Manufacturing Doomerism: Why and How Making Stuff Matters
This report by Todd Tucker and Oskar Dye-Furstenberg examines US manufacturing’s evolving role, highlighting its continued importance for innovation, productivity, and exports despite a declining…
rooseveltinstitute.org
