Our country is standing at a crossroads. Neither the world nor America’s place in it is what it was a generation ago. The unipolar moment is over. And yet, many in the Republican Party seek to claim the mantle of America First while continuing the same failed adventurism of the past.
National conservatism as a movement agrees that these people and ideas must be stopped. But we have failed to check their influence in the party largely because we have not offered an alternative that both meets the real threats to American security and balances national interest, the deterrent effect, industrial capability, and political will.
We cannot deter our adversaries if we cannot outbuild them.
I outlined a framework for what a genuine America First foreign policy would entail in an essay for the National Interest. I called for developing a doctrine that I dubbed “prioritized deterrence.” That essay was the first step toward forging a set of foreign policy principles that can unite national conservatives and set the agenda for the Republican Party for the next generation.
A key component of prioritized deterrence is industrial capacity. Deterrence depends not only on our military’s technical capability, but also on our industrial capacity — certainly in defense, but particularly in non-defense. Without factories humming, shipyards bustling, and energy production roaring, our ability to deter wanes. We cannot project strength abroad if we cannot produce strength at home.
Prioritized deterrence is not retreat. It is a recalibration. It rejects the fantasy that America can — or should — police every corner of the globe. Instead, it demands that we concretely identify our vital national interests. No more vague talk of values or entering endless nation-building campaigns. This will require open and honest debate.
The days of tarring dissenting voices as unpatriotic should be left in the rearview mirror. In fact, I recently sent a letter to President Donald Trump urging him to award Pat Buchanan the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Buchanan was right about nearly everything 20 years before anyone else realized it, including his recognition that Iraq was not aligned with our strategic national interests. We need serious voices like his in the conversation during these all-important debates.
Prioritized deterrence belongs firmly within the realist school of thought. It rests on restraint and on the quantifiable limits of a nation’s resources and people. Those limits force policymakers to rank threats to the American way of life by urgency and severity.
Deterrence depends on credibility: An aggressor must believe it will pay an unacceptable price for attacking the United States. But not every hostile nation deserves brinkmanship. National constraints and the risk of escalation demand that we focus only on the gravest threats.
Kinetic action must remain credible but reserved as a last resort. The U.S. military exists not only to fight and win wars but, more importantly, to deter them before they begin and ensure American security.
What does a strategy that contends with these essential questions look like in practice?
Consider the 2020 strike on Qassem Soleimani. A single, precise action eliminated a key architect of Iran’s malign influence, sending a message to Tehran: Kill Americans, and you will pay. No endless wars, no nation-building, just a clear signal backed by lethal force.
Now consider Operation Midnight Hammer. President Trump authorized a precision strike that was executed flawlessly. He rejected calls to further escalate into regime change. As a result, we eliminated a key threat while managing the retaliation from Iran and successfully stepped off the escalation ladder before the region became destabilized. That’s prioritized deterrence in action.
What do these strikes have in common, other than the antagonist? In both cases, the president laid out clear, precise explanations of America’s vital national interest. He aligned the use of force with American goals, and he did so precisely with explicit acknowledgment of our constraints and limitations.
Additionally, both strikes relied on American technological supremacy: drones, stealth bombers, precision munitions, and intelligence — all products of a sophisticated industrial base. However, we cannot just rely on our qualitative military advantage as a silver bullet for deterrence. At a certain point, quantitative advantages become qualitative, which is one of the reasons China’s industrial might has made it so formidable on the world stage.
What is making us less formidable on the world stage is Ukraine. We should not be funding the war in Ukraine, and we should never have been involved in that conflict from the beginning. The proponents of prolonging this conflict seem unable or unwilling to grasp the reality that we do not have the industrial capacity to provide Ukraine with what they need — to say nothing of providing for our own needs here at home.
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In fact, Ukraine’s defense minister has said his country needs 4 million 155-millimeter artillery shells per year and would use as many as 7 million per year if they were available.
In 2024, then-Senator JD Vance correctly noted that even after drastically ramping up production, the U.S. could still only produce 360,000 shells per year — less than one-tenth of what Ukraine supposedly needs. Vance was also doubtful of expert claims that we could produce 1.2 million rounds per year by the end of 2025. In the end, he was right, and the experts were wrong.
The Army now confirms that the U.S. is only on pace to produce 480,000 artillery shells per year. These aren’t highly sophisticated guided missiles either. Quantity, not quality, ended up winning the day.
Very simply, we must choose to put America first, as we do not currently have the capacity to both arm Ukraine and defend ourselves should the need arise.
A candid assessment of our industrial capacity is that it’s lagging. The same voices that called for foreign adventurism also hollowed out our heartland and sent our manufacturing jobs overseas. We now face a new choice: Rebuild or be left to the ashes of history.
We cannot deter our adversaries if we cannot outbuild them. Our defense industrial base — shipyards, munitions factories, aerospace plants — lag significantly behind our peers, especially China. This is a far cry from the industrial base that won World War II.
The Virginia-class submarine program, for example, is crucial in countering China. Yet limited shipyard capacity, supply chain bottlenecks, and a shortage of skilled workers have created years-long delays. Chinese shipyards account for more than 50% of global commercial shipbuilding, while the U.S. makes up just 0.1%.
In 2024, a single Chinese shipbuilder constructed more commercial vessels by tonnage than the entire U.S. shipbuilding industry has since World War II. We cannot deter China in this state of industrial atrophy.
Just as critical — perhaps even more so — is the need to rebuild the U.S. industrial base as a whole, not just the defense sector. “If you want peace, prepare for war” means more than building ships. It means strengthening industry, shoring up families, and restoring the backbone of society. That creates jobs, secures supply chains, and projects strength without overextending our forces or wasting resources.
During World War II, the United States retooled civilian manufacturing almost overnight. Ford and General Motors turned out aircraft. Singer Sewing Machine Company built precision cockpit instruments. IBM produced fire-control systems for bombers. Civilian industry became the arsenal of democracy.
That capacity has withered. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed just how hollowed out our domestic base has become. America now relies on China for more than 80% of the active ingredients in pharmaceuticals. That dependence gives Beijing leverage.
Our weakness feeds China’s confidence. If defending Taiwan means empty pharmacy shelves across America, would Washington still respond? Beijing is counting on the answer. That calculation could determine whether China invades.
We need a manufacturing renaissance — steel mills, factories, foundries — because a nation that outsources its industry outsources its power.
Taiwan is indicative of another vital manufacturing sector where our capacity is lagging: the semiconductor industry. These chips power everything from smartphones to missile systems, yet the U.S. produces less than 12% of the world’s supply. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s TSMC dominates. If China invades Taiwan, our military and domestic economy will grind to a halt.
This is not theoretical; it’s a ticking time bomb, one that is tied directly to our ability to credibly deter China.
This equation must change. If America produces pharmaceuticals and semiconductors at home, adversaries lose their leverage. Deterrence grows stronger without firing a shot or putting boots on foreign soil.
I think of my home state of West Virginia, where Weirton Steel once stood as one of the largest steel producers in the world. At its peak, it employed 23,000 people.
That steel not only secured American dominance in industry, it sustained families, churches, schools, and communities. A single paycheck could buy a home and support a family. Mothers could raise children and stay active in their schools and churches because one income was enough.
The same bipartisan leaders in Washington who chased short-term gains instead of building a strong industrial base and healthy families signed Weirton Steel’s death warrant. They let China flood the U.S. market with cheap tin plate steel, and Weirton paid the price.
We begged President Joe Biden for tariff relief, but he followed the pattern of his predecessors and did nothing. The result: Weirton’s tin plate mill was idled, thousands of workers lost their jobs, and the community was gutted.
Today, only one blast furnace capable of producing tin plate steel remains in the entire United States. One.
Economic capacity and industrial output are critical in the defense of the nation and create a better quality of life. A strong manufacturing sector is, in itself, a strong deterrent. China understands this.
Its “Made in China 2025” plan, cited in then-Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2019 address at the National Defense University, declared:
Manufacturing is the main pillar of the national economy, the foundation of the country, the tool of transformation, and the basis of prosperity. Since the beginning of industrial civilization in the middle of the 18th century, it has been proven repeatedly by the rise and fall of world powers that without strong manufacturing, there is no national prosperity.
This is obviously true.
China now produces more than half the world’s steel, powering both its infrastructure and its military. Meanwhile, we’ve allowed our own steel industry to wither, importing from abroad while American mills rust. That failure is not only economic. It’s strategic.
We won World War II in part because we built planes, tanks, and ships faster than the Axis powers could destroy them. A robust industrial base — defense and non-defense — is a deterrent in itself. It signals to adversaries: We can outfight you, outbuild you, and outlast you.
We need a manufacturing renaissance — steel mills, factories, foundries — because a nation that outsources its industry outsources its power. Deindustrialization was a choice, a choice with disastrous consequences. We must now make the choice to rebuild and reindustrialize.
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To have manufacturing dominance, we must unleash energy dominance. Factories don’t run on hope; they run on power — reliable, affordable, and abundant power. Wind and solar power are obviously not able to power anything. Thankfully, America’s superpower is the massive quantities of natural resources we have at our fingertips.
We have some of the largest proven reserves of both oil and natural gas of any nation in the world. This is a textbook example of our quantitative advantage becoming a qualitative advantage.
We have the largest proven reserve of coal in the world, nearly double the supply of the next closest country. Our energy potential is unlimited, and we must drastically ramp up our output if we want to meet the energy demands of the future economy.
Fossil fuels have long been the backbone of industrial power, and West Virginia’s coal and natural gas is its beating heart. Yet coal in particular has been under siege, not just from regulations but from corporate environmental, social, and governance policies pushed by firms like BlackRock that waged war on fossil fuels.
As state treasurer of West Virginia, I took a stand. I made West Virginia the first state in the nation to divest our tax dollars from BlackRock. I refused to let Wall Street’s agenda use our own state’s money to kill our coal industry. Today, more than a dozen states have followed our lead, rejecting ESG policies that undermine American energy dominance.
China, meanwhile, builds coal plants at a breakneck pace, powering its industrial juggernaut. They use coal to fuel their steel production while we let our own mines and mills idle. We cannot let this continue.
Thanks to President Trump, we’ve begun to change course. For the first time in my lifetime, a president took a stand for coal, signing executive orders promoting domestic coal production. But we need to go further. We must become a global juggernaut with an “all of the below” approach to energy — coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear must power our path to energy dominance.
America cannot do everything, everywhere, all at once. We are not a nation of infinite industrial capacity, infinite goods, or infinite will. Scarcity — of materials, of capacity, of resolve — forces us to choose. Prioritized deterrence is a framework for grappling with those choices.
It is a commitment to focusing our energies, rebuilding our industrial might, and unleashing the energy to power a 21st-century industrial base. It’s a rejection of overreach in favor of strength, of focus instead of distraction.
Leaders on both sides of the aisle over the last 40 years squandered the inheritance of peace, security, and industrial might in favor of globalization and foreign adventurism. We cannot afford to continue down that path. Correcting course will require open, honest, and sometimes intense debate.
It will require serious investments from business leaders in American manufacturing and public policies that assist in this reorientation. It demands that we do more to appropriately train and equip a skilled workforce.
But we must start now. America will build again, power again, and deter again. Not everywhere, not always — but where it matters most, with a strength that none can match.
Editor’s note: This article has been adapted from a speech delivered on Tuesday, Sept. 2, to the fifth National Conservatism Conference (NatCon 5) in Washington, D.C.
Following a trade deal involving a tariff reduction from the original 25%, down to 15% last month, President Trump is meeting with the newly elected president of South Korea, Lee Jae Myung. The meeting will focus on trade and defense strategies, but Trump raised a different concern that will now likely color the conversation.
President Trump warned of apparent political instability in South Korea on Monday morning ahead of their meeting, even suggesting that it might be impossible to do business with the long-standing ally.
'I cannot contain my outrage at the Lee Jae Myung administration's ruthless political persecution and retaliation against the opposition, spearheaded by the special prosecution.'
"WHAT IS GOING ON IN SOUTH KOREA? Seems like a Purge or Revolution. We can’t have that and do business there," Trump said in a Truth Social post on Monday morning. "I am seeing the new President today at the White House. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!"
Lee, who won the presidency in June to replace the conservative party's stand-in candidate, has prioritized the economy in his short tenure. The ex-president, Yoon Suk Yeol, who fashioned himself as a Trumpian figure during his presidency to foster a connection with Trump, has been in jail since July 10.
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According to the French outlet Le Monde, Lee's party recently conducted raids on the former party's headquarters, including arresting the ex-first lady Kim Keon Hee. She was arrested on charges of corruption and stock manipulation on August 12. The raid was conducted on August 13 to collect evidence of election interference.
Opposition leader Song Eon-seog reportedly slammed the raid as "nothing short of gangster behavior." "I cannot contain my outrage at the Lee Jae Myung administration's ruthless political persecution and retaliation against the opposition, spearheaded by the special prosecution," Song said in a news briefing.
President Lee headlined a dinner with local Korean Americans in Washington on Sunday night following his arrival. He is scheduled to depart on August 26.
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Well before America’s founders drafted the Constitution, they understood that they had a national security problem rooted in economic and technological gaps.
Colonial America supplied Britain with raw materials, and the motherland traded us finished goods. That was tolerable then, despite its one-sided nature.
The intellectual property framework the founders designed democratized invention and creativity — and rewarded merit.
Then, Great Britain crossed the Rubicon. It unilaterally levied taxes on the colonies with the Sugar Act, which colonial resistance caused to be repealed. The Stamp Act of 1765 also imposed taxes without colonial consent. Then the taxes and regulations of the Townshend Acts further stirred colonial anger.
Revolutionary sentiments brewed, with public protests resulting in the Boston Massacre of 1770 and the “tea parties” in 1773 and 1774. Finally, combat broke out at Lexington and Concord in 1775.
Britain had the economic and military advantage over the largely agricultural colonies, which suffered chronic shortages of guns, gunpowder, blankets, and shoes.
For America to survive as an independent nation, the model had to change. It needed to promote rapid economic and technological advancement. It needed a policy that coupled economic liberty with property rights.
The founders set a course for achieving what Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution calls “the progress of science and useful arts.” This was done “by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
The intellectual property framework the founders designed democratized invention and creativity — and rewarded merit. The Constitution was crafted to secure and enable an individual’s rights, including patent rights to the property someone created.
The founders understood that the ownership right would help unleash human flourishing. They had learned this from the Bible, the legacy of the Reformation, and great minds such as Edward Coke, William Blackstone, and John Locke.
Property rights incentivized creative endeavors, which is precisely what the framers sought to do.
The biblical framework for invention and creativity flows from foundational truths. He who created the universe (e.g., Genesis 1:1, Job 38, Psalm 8:1-5) also claims ownership of His creation (e.g., Deuteronomy 10:14, Psalm 24:1, Isaiah 64:8).
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Moreover, God not only creates and owns, but He communicates those attributes to human beings, the creature who bears His image and is charged with stewardship of the lower creation (e.g., Genesis 1:26-30, Psalm 8:6-8, Micah 4:4). The founders applied this combination of creativity and ownership as the formula for maximizing human flourishing.
This resulted in America growing from a vulnerable agrarian society to the world’s premier industrial economy. By the 20th century, the United States led the world in economic and technological strength.
The golden age of American patenting started in 1836, when Congress established a dedicated U.S. Patent Office.
When someone produced a novel invention, he was awarded a patent. Applicants could appeal patent denials to impartial chief examiners — and they could obtain review in a federal court. A patent had a 14-year term from the date it was issued. Economic historian Zorina Khan notes in "The Democratization of Invention" that a seven-year extension could be provided to ensure “reasonable remuneration for the time, ingenuity, and expense bestowed” in developing and bringing an invention to market.
This system embodied the founders’ vision, implementing the biblical model of human creativity incentivized by secure ownership. This creativity-ownership combination has clearly stimulated mass flourishing in America, where we have experienced wealth creation and prosperity in vast measure.
Today, we approach the 250th anniversary of our independence, knowing what the founders did not: The American experiment turned out quite well.
Yet keen observers are less sanguine about our future.
In recent years, the federal government has undermined the successful intellectual property model the founders gave us.
For example, a cardinal rule of the patent process was maintaining the confidentiality of inventions for which a patent was sought but not yet granted. But then the Clinton administration and Congress began publishing U.S. patents that were still being examined. Cutting-edge American technology was being transferred to Japan and China before an inventor’s exclusive legal rights had been secured at home.
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The 2011 America Invents Act wiped out several useful elements of the Patent Act. It established the quasi-judicial Patent Trial and Appeal Board, before which anyone can challenge and more easily invalidate issued patents. Today, the PTAB destroys value and wealth in newly created property, the very inventions that promise American leadership in the most cutting-edge technologies.
The United States is now falling behind in global technological leadership — but we must out-innovate foreign competitors, particularly China.
America must relink ownership with creativity to incentivize creativity through reliable, enforceable property rights. Secure IP rights coupled with economic freedom are pro-growth policy, just as much as the right tax policies.
To re-establish America’s technological and economic prowess, we must return to God’s design — that which the founders adopted with world-changing success.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell signaled on Friday that he may consider cutting interest rates in the near future.
During a speech at an annual gathering in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Powell hinted at the possibility of changes to interest rates at the next September meeting due to a "shifting balance of risks."
'I personally believe the Fed could cut a full percent and still not have policy unleash inflationary pressures, but I don't foresee a cut that substantial in September.'
He contended that the Federal Reserve's "restrictive policy stance" has been "appropriate to help bring down inflation and to foster a sustainable balance between aggregate demand and supply."
Powell blamed "higher tariffs" for introducing "new challenges" to the U.S. economy and "tighter immigration policy" for causing an "abrupt slowdown in labor force growth." He contended that both factors have impacted demand and supply.
"Over the longer run, changes in tax, spending, and regulatory policies may also have important implications for economic growth and productivity," Powell claimed. "There is significant uncertainty about where all of these policies will eventually settle and what their lasting effects on the economy will be."
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He argued that "risks to inflation are tilted to the upside and risks to employment to the downside." Powell called it a "challenging situation" given that the Fed's "framework calls for us to balance both sides of our dual mandate," referring to the labor market and price stability.
However, he indicated that with the policy rate "100 basis points closer to neutral" compared to last year and stability in labor market measures, the Federal Reserve may "proceed carefully as we consider changes to our policy stance."
"Nonetheless, with policy in restrictive territory, the baseline outlook and the shifting balance of risks may warrant adjusting our policy stance," Powell said.
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President Donald Trump has repeatedly urged Powell to drop interest rates.
"He should have cut them a year ago. He's too late," Trump said Friday afternoon in response to Powell's speech.
Blaze Media contributor Carol Roth told Blaze News, "Reading between the lines, it certainly sounded like Powell was signaling a higher likelihood of a September rate cut, something that the market had already been expecting. In terms of the Fed's stated 'dual mandate,' the pendulum seems to be swinging to more concern over the labor market than inflation, although certainly not ignoring inflation, but rather wanting to avoid a stagflation scenario," Roth said.
"Powell is definitely late to a rate cut, both in terms of supporting the economy and giving the Fed room in terms of future ability to raise rates in the face of any potential spikes in inflation," Roth continued. "While 25 basis points (one quarter of a percent) is the likely size of a cut, it probably isn't enough to be meaningful in terms of consumer or business behavior — it seems more symbolic. I personally believe the Fed could cut a full percent and still not have policy unleash inflationary pressures, but I don't foresee a cut that substantial in September."
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“They’re coming home — they’re all coming home.”
That’s how President Donald Trump described Apple’s decision to invest $600 billion in the American economy, $100 billion more than initially expected.
For decades, corporate America packed up and left. Under President Trump, companies are coming back.
Standing alongside Apple CEO Tim Cook, President Trump declared: “These investments will directly create more than 20,000 brand-new American jobs and many thousands more at Apple suppliers like Corning, Broadcom, Texas Instruments, and Samsung.”
This is proof that the America First agenda is working.
America First isn’t just a campaign slogan. It’s a movement rooted in economic patriotism. For decades, global corporations were incentivized to offshore jobs and close American factories, leaving once-thriving towns in economic ruin.
President Trump is reversing that damage. His America First agenda creates the conditions for companies to thrive here at home — cutting taxes, slashing red tape, rebuilding infrastructure, and putting American workers first in trade deals and policy decisions.
Apple’s investment is just the latest example. From Silicon Valley to the Rust Belt, companies are responding favorably to the president’s policies, which are rewarding their investments on U.S. soil.
In the past six months alone, more than $17 trillion in new investment, factories, and infrastructure projects have been announced. From semiconductor plants in Arizona to advanced steel manufacturing in Pennsylvania, we are witnessing the rebirth of American manufacturing.
And America First doesn’t stop at building new factories. It also means building the capacity to win strategic fights — including the tech war with China.
One example is the Trump administration’s recent decision toheed U.S. intelligence experts and greenlight the merger between Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks.
For years, national security experts have warned about Huawei, the Chinese tech giant with deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Huawei’s global dominance in 5G and enterprise networking poses a serious threat to cybersecurity, national defense, and communications freedom. The problem wasn’t identifying the threat. The problem was that no U.S. company could match Huawei — that is, until now. Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi are helping the U.S. finally compete in this industry.
Another example is President Trump’s executive order jump-starting America’s rare-earth and critical mineral supply chains — an industry China has dominated for years. From electric vehicles to advanced weapons systems, the modern economy runs on rare-earths. Yet for too long, America depended on Chinese exports to power everything from smartphones to fighter jets.
That is changing under President Trump, who signed an executive order cutting red tape, fast-tracking permits, and directing federal agencies to prioritize American sourcing and refining of rare-earth and critical minerals. As a result, U.S. companies are now increasingly investing in domestic mining operations in America, laying the foundation for greater American economic independence.
In June, Trump even signed an agreement with China to resume exports of U.S. rare-earth minerals. The global tide on U.S. exports is now turning.
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America First means just that: America first. Whether it’s encouraging companies such as Apple to invest here at home or ensuring that U.S. tech companies can go toe to toe with China, President Trump is delivering real results.
For decades, corporate America packed up and left. Under President Trump, companies are coming back. They’re investing in our people, our cities, and our future. That’s not just good policy. That’s what winning looks like.
The Department of Labor reported on August 1 that the U.S. unemployment rate ticked up slightly in July to 4.2%. Employers added just 73,000 jobs — well below the 110,000 economists had projected.
Democrats pounced immediately.
This isn’t economic chaos. It’s called a comeback.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) claimed the report showed Americans are “paying the price” for “Donald Trump’s destructive trade war.” He called the data an illustration of “economic chaos.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) — already positioning himself for a 2028 presidential run — declared that Trump is “crashing our economy” and insisted, “We haven’t seen conditions like these since 2020.”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D) of Connecticut said the economy was “chaotic and full of corruption.” He later wrote on X: “Companies don’t want to create jobs in Trump’s chaos economy with weakening rule of law and rampant corruption.”
But the reality is far less dramatic than the rhetoric.
Yes, the July jobs report was underwhelming. But it was far from catastrophic.
The 4.2% unemployment rate in July 2025 is the same as it was in July 2024 — and in March, April, May, August, and November of last year. The rate has held steady for months. In what way is that “crashing our economy”? That’s called consistency.
By contrast, unemployment rose significantly during President Biden’s final year in office. In July 2023, the rate was 3.5%. A year later, just before Biden dropped out of the 2024 race, it had climbed to 4.2%.
The fact is, Trump didn’t inherit a strong economy. He got Biden’s inflation, stagnation, and policy uncertainty. So what we’re seeing now is more of a course correction, not a crash.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, full-time employment has grown by 1.1 million over the past 12 months. Layoffs in July were down 15% year over year.
Gross domestic product also rebounded. The Commerce Department reports that U.S. economic output rose 3% in the second quarter of 2025, reversing a 0.5% contraction in the first.
None of this suggests economic free fall. It suggests recovery.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has brokered major trade agreements with key global players and secured historic investment deals — moves that will pay off in the years ahead.
Japan pledged to invest $550 billion in U.S. industries, and Saudi Arabia agreed to $600 billion in new investments. In May, the United Arab Emirates agreed to more than $200 billion in commercial deals, on top of a $1.4 trillion commitment earlier this year to back emerging technologies.
American companies are also stepping up in response to Trump’s pro-business regulatory agenda.
Apple this week reached an agreement with the White House to commit another $100 million to domestic manufacturing. This follows the tech giant’s announcement in February of plans to spend more than $500 billion in the U.S. over four years, focusing on operations in Arizona, California, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, and North Carolina.
IBM pledged $150 billion over five years.
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Eli Lilly in February committed $27 billion for new domestic manufacturing, including four new plants. That initiative alone will create more than 3,000 permanent jobs and 10,000 construction jobs.
These investments are not instant, but they are real — and they will reshape America’s economy.
The Democrats’ sudden alarm over a flat unemployment rate reveals more about their political fears than economic facts. A strengthening Trump economy threatens their narrative — and their electoral strategy.
They’re hoping manufactured panic can drown out progress. But Americans can see what’s really happening.
The July jobs report may have missed expectations, but the broader trend is unmistakable. Trump is rebuilding what Biden’s policies eroded. Jobs are returning. Investment is growing. Stability is taking root.
This isn’t economic chaos. It’s called a comeback.
President Donald Trump is set to announce another win as a result of his tariff policies. According to reports, on Wednesday he will highlight another massive investment in American manufacturing, which is expected to benefit the economy and create jobs.
The White House stated that Apple Inc. is planning to commit another $100 billion to domestic production to circumvent Trump's tariffs, several news outlets, including the New York Times and Bloomberg, have reported.
'Trump casually delivering the largest investment in Apple's entire history like it's just another Wednesday afternoon!'
While Apple has not yet confirmed this latest plan, it has previously guaranteed that it would invest $500 billion and hire 20,000 people in the United States over the next four years. The technology company also has plans to open a 250,000-square-foot factory in Houston, Texas, to produce servers that support its artificial intelligence system.
Apple CEO Tim Cook stated last week during a call with analysts that "the vast majority" of the company's iPhones sold in the U.S. are produced in India. Apple's other products, including MacBooks, iPads, and Apple Watches, are manufactured in Vietnam.
"We obviously try to optimize our supply chain," Cook stated. "And ultimately, we will do more in the United States."
Apple announced its third-quarter results last week, reporting revenue of $94 billion, which is a 10% increase compared to the previous year.
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"Today Apple is proud to report a June quarter revenue record with double-digit growth in iPhone, Mac and Services and growth around the world, in every geographic segment," Cook said.
Apple's investment plan in the U.S. appears to be influenced by Trump's threats to impose a 25% tariff on its products manufactured outside the country.
The $600 billion total investment will bring more of Apple's supply chain to the U.S., a White House official told Bloomberg.
White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers stated, "President Trump's America First economic agenda has secured trillions of dollars in investments that support American jobs and bolster American businesses."
"Today's announcement with Apple is another win for our manufacturing industry that will simultaneously help reshore the production of critical components to protect America's economic and national security," Rogers added.
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Cook is expected to attend a meeting with Trump in the Oval Office on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. Eastern to announce the latest investment update.
The U.S. Commerce Department stated, "This investment — part of the new American Manufacturing Program — will help reshore critical supply chains, strengthen national security, and bolster America's economic infrastructure."
Donald Trump Jr. reacted to the investment plan in a post on social media.
"Trump casually delivering the largest investment in Apple's entire history like it's just another Wednesday afternoon!" he wrote.
Apple did not respond to a request for comment from Bloomberg.
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Two days after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell announced the central bank’s decision not to reduce interest rates, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported scathingly bad news about the U.S. economy.
Employers added much fewer jobs than expected in July, revised numbers showed that employment and hiring were weak in May and June, and the unemployment rate ticked up again in July, reaching 4.2%.
Powell and the Fed have been doing their best to stunt economic growth — and they are succeeding.
Although Powell refuses to admit it, the Fed’s tight money policy is crushing economic growth.
In an impressive “Dewey Defeats Truman” moment, Powell said on Wednesday that the Fed was not ready to lower interest rates, citing low unemployment and inflation slightly above the Fed’s stated goal of 2%. Despite the Fed having lowered its target interest rate three times last fall to its current level — even though inflation remained “somewhat elevated” at the time, as the Fed put it — the Fed seems to have changed its tune under the Trump administration.
Friday’s numbers destroyed Powell’s explanation. The 73,000 new jobs in July were far below the 110,000 that economists had expected. In addition, the Bureau of Labor Statistics cut the reported job-creation totals for May and June from a healthy 291,000 to a dismal 33,000.
The economy has clearly been wobbly since January 2021 brought the tax-spend-borrow strategy that created the Biden-era fiscal disaster. The Fed caused the 2020s inflation by monetizing the Biden administration’s massive, irresponsible increase in the federal deficit and debt; boosting the money supply by 12.3% from January 2021 to April 2022; and holding the Fed funds rate around 0.08% until March 18, 2022, when the Fed raised it to a meager 0.33%.
The Fed’s target interest rate is now 4.33%, much higher than it has been at any other time in the 2000s except for the run-up to the Great Recession of 2008.
The central bank watched inflation soar during the Biden administration and wants to ensure that it does not recur. The Fed has used high interest rates and asset sales to tighten the money supply for three years now. Recent money supply growth has been lower than normal.
The federal budget has stabilized now, however, surprisingly running a slight surplus in June, which is relieving the main source of inflationary pressure. The surplus will undoubtedly prove temporary, but the lower-deficit trend will persist as long as economic growth continues and Congress does not increase spending any further: A growing economy provides greater tax revenues.
Powell is scuttling that plan by keeping interest rates too high. Instead of taking responsibility for the lingering effects of his inflationary Biden-assistance plan, Powell has been blaming tariffs and workers for the current slightly elevated inflation.
The Federal Reserve consistently sees low unemployment as bad news, assuming that it will bring on price inflation as workers demand higher wages, emboldened by a reduced fear of being stuck without a job. In addition, Powell argues that tariffs will increase inflation.
Both those notions ignore the simple fact that inflation is a general rise in prices, not price increases in specific sectors of the economy. If tariffs cause the prices of imported goods and some business inputs to rise, prices of other things must fall, unless someone increases the overall money supply — and that would have to be the Fed itself.
Similarly, if wages rise, it must be because productivity is increasing, or businesses would not be able to afford to pay higher wages — unless somebody increases the overall money supply, which again points to the Fed.
If businesses decide to pay the higher wages, even if output per worker is not rising and consumers continue to buy those items at the same rate, prices of other things must fall. Less money available for purchasing or investing in those other things means lower prices — unless the central bank increases the money supply.
Try as he might, Powell cannot exonerate the Fed for the struggles with inflation.
President Trump and congressional Republicans have rolled back the worst of the pandemic- and Biden-era fiscal and regulatory mayhem in addition to the sky-high inflation under the Biden-Harris administration — and the results are beginning to show. The U.S. economy grew at an unexpectedly strong 3% annual rate in the second quarter, a clear, positive response to the tax cut extension and major deregulation over the past six months.
The recent extension of the 2017 tax cuts and the Trump administration’s rapid action to deregulate industry and energy will go far in reviving the economy, if given a chance. Unfortunately, the Fed seems determined to thwart a full recovery.
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“You do not see weakening in the labor market,” Powell said in his Wednesday press conference, two days before the Bureau of Labor Statistics documented that very weakness.
“Demand for workers is slowing, but so is the supply. … Wages are gradually cooling,” he continued.
We now know why wages have been cooling while the jobs market was strong: The jobs market was not strong. Powell and the Fed have been doing their best to stunt economic growth — and they are succeeding.
All of this suggests that the Fed should reduce interest rates — gradually and with a keen eye monitoring the situation — to give the economy room to expand and take advantage of somewhat-improved federal fiscal, regulatory, and energy policies.
In addition, continuing the slow reduction of the central bank’s balance sheet, which the Fed’s governors nearly doubled in 2009 and foolishly ballooned during the second Obama administration and the pandemic, would continue to provide a brake on inflation without unduly stunting economic growth.
Though federal fiscal policy still needs serious reform — through substantial cuts in spending — squeezing the economy with tight money is certainly not the solution to our economic problems.
The entire administration should spend every day convincing Americans that they're doing everything in their power to help families get ahead, for they ignore 'the economy, stupid,' at their peril.
In public service, integrity is judged in real time, not deferred until a jury renders a verdict.
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