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Strategic Technology
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- PerspectivaStrategic Technology
Technical standards decide admission where a tariff only sets a price, and nothing in the record counts admission
Goods exports to mainland China fell from 13 billion dollars a month in 2022 to 9 in 2025, and imports from 45 to 26. The series record that both legs shrank and attribute the fall to nothing, which is why a rulebook written years earlier cannot be told apart from a duty imposed last quarter.
- PerspectivaStrategic Technology
Diffusion rather than invention is the binding step in technological change, and no series in the record counts it
Computer and electronic product output rose 21.1 index points between 2020 and 2025 while manufacturing output as a whole ended 2.7 points below its own 2017 base. Core capital-goods orders, the closest series in the record to the channel by which equipment reaches firms that do not make it, averaged 77 billion dollars a month in 2022 and the same in 2025.
- PerspectivaWorkforce & Skills
The states that make the most things are not the states with the most engineers
Of the eight states where production work is most concentrated, four hold less than the national share of architecture and engineering jobs and two more hold barely the national share. That gap, not the incentive package, is the binding constraint on where a complex facility can be built and run.
- ConstataçãoIndustrial Policy
New orders for durable goods fell once in five years, then jumped
Orders dipped by 4.9 billion dollars a month in 2024 and rose by 23.4 billion in 2025, the largest single-year gain in the window. The series counts dollars, not machines.
- ComentárioIndustrial 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.
- ComentárioIndustrial 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.
- ExplicativoIndustrial Policy
Manufacturing employment and manufacturing output measure different things
A country can make more while employing fewer people, and the federal series that track it will say so. This explains what each one counts and when each one is the right measure to cite.
- ComentárioMacroeconomics & 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.
- ExplicativoIndustrial Policy
What a production subsidy actually buys
Governments underwrite factories in two different ways: by paying toward the building, or by paying for each unit the finished plant makes. By the end you will know which instrument a programme is using, and what each one can and cannot change.
- ConstataçãoIndustrial Policy
Half the capacity use gained after 2020 has since been given back
Manufacturing capacity utilisation rose 4.7 points between 2020 and 2022, and 4.4 of them arrived in the first year. It has given back 2.3 points in the three years since.
- ComentárioStrategic 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.
- ComentárioIndustrial 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.
- ExplicativoEconomic Security
What a government means when it says de-risking
De-risking is the attempt to remove one supplier's leverage over an economy without ending the trade. By the end you should know which instruments governments use, why dependence is so hard to measure, and why rising domestic output does not settle the question.
- ConstataçãoIndustrial Policy
Electronics output rose more in 2025 than in the three years before it combined
The computer and electronic product index added 8.5 points in 2025, against 8 points exactly across the three preceding years together, on a base where 2017 is 100. A narrower semiconductor index published on the same base added 21 points in that same year, and the file does not say how much of the broader move belongs to it.
- ComentárioEconomic 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.
- ExplicativoEconomic Security
What export controls reach and what they leave alone
An export control is a licensing rule keyed to a specific item, destination and end user. By the end you will know what triggers a licence, how the rules reach goods made abroad, and where their reach stops.
- ConstataçãoEconomic Security
The industrial index has spent six years going almost nowhere
Industrial production ended 2025 at 101.2 on a 2017 base of 100. It has moved 1.9 points in four years, and the 2025 reading sits 0.2 above 2022.
- ExplicativoDevelopment Finance
What an offtake agreement does
An offtake agreement is a promise to buy something that has not been made yet. By the end you will know what it changes for a lender, what it costs the seller, and what it leaves unsolved.
- ExplicativoTrade & Investment
What a tariff schedule actually is
A tariff is not a rate applied to an industry. It is a rate attached to a line in a legal taxonomy of goods. By the end of this you will know how a good gets its line, and why a duty on a component often never touches the component.