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- CommentaryIndustrial Policy
Semiconductor subsidy should be judged on demand met at home, not on fabs opened
Construction spending on manufacturing plant fell from an annual rate of 244 billion dollars in 2024 to 215 billion in 2025, while U.S. semiconductor production rose from 144 to 165 on a 2017 base, its largest step in five observations. The two yardsticks now available disagree about the same year, and the one that should settle the question appears in none of this data.
- CommentaryIndustrial Policy
The order book everyone quotes is measured in dollars that changed size
New orders for durable goods reached 311.2 billion dollars in 2025, the highest reading in five years. It is a current-dollar figure stated as a monthly rate, and it is routinely read as neither of those things.
- CommentaryMacroeconomics & Markets
Six productivity readings cannot carry the case being made for artificial intelligence
Output per hour in the nonfarm business sector went from 109.1 in 2020 to 118 in 2025 on a 2017 base of 100, and the largest single step in that window, 3.3 points, landed in 2024 rather than 2025. The two fastest years for the ratio are also the two slowest years for payrolls, which is the shape a shrinking denominator makes as well as the shape a new technology makes.
- CommentaryStrategic Technology
An export control can close a sale and it cannot close a dependency
Goods imports from China averaged 45 billion dollars a month in 2022 and 26 billion a month in 2025, and goods exports to mainland China fell to 9 billion a month, the lowest of six readings. Over the same years the balance in goods and services widened from minus 75 billion a month to minus 78, the widest of its own six.
- CommentaryIndustrial Policy
One industrial line is climbing and the index around it is not
Domestic semiconductor production reached 165 on a 2017 base in 2025, from 121 in 2021. Total industrial production reached 101.2. That gap is the best evidence economic-security policy has in this data, which is exactly why it should be claimed carefully.
- CommentaryEconomic Security
Before the next plant, explain the idle line
American manufacturing used 75.3 percent of its capacity in 2025, against 77.6 percent in 2022. A programme that pays to add capacity without accounting for the capacity already standing is not an industrial policy. It is a construction policy.