Trade policy data is a lagging indicator of actual policy change—political sentiment and policy rhetoric about deglobalization and China competition precede changes in actual trade flows, so current policy changes may eventually show up in trade data as a significant reversal even though flows currently appear resilient.

The political constraints facing the Biden administration (50-50 Senate dependent on Joe Manchin, highly polarized society, budget reconciliation forcing everything into one bill) meant that the inflation reduction act and infrastructure packages were likely the best policies that could realistically be passed, making them worth pursuing despite imperfections.

Current economic conditions show GDP growth is the highest in the G7, labor force participation for prime-age workers is at its highest in decades, real wages are rising for the first time since March 2021, unemployment is low, which suggests this is exactly the kind of pro-worker, fast-growing economy desired since 2008.

Manufacturing construction spending increased only 2 percent during the four Trump years but has increased 100 percent in the first two Biden years, and the administration reports more than 500 billion dollars in announced private sector manufacturing investments, with battery, chip fab, and solar projects announced weekly.

Despite rhetoric about deglobalization, absolute trade flows have remained resilient or increased—global trade recovered past pre-pandemic levels by 2021, trade between the US and China set a new record in 2022, and oil and gas markets adjusted to Russia's invasion, suggesting data shows globalization's resilience rather than its downfall.

There are two distinct critiques of globalization in the US policy debate—the 'China shock' argument (that outsourcing to China caused manufacturing job losses) and the 'China entanglement' argument (that dependence on China as an increasingly hostile adversary creates vulnerability)—which are often conflated but lead to very different policy prescriptions.

Modeling by the Princeton-led REPEAT project estimates that the inflation reduction act and bipartisan infrastructure bill combined will create around 1.5 million additional jobs by 2030 and 2.5 million by 2035, with over 600,000 of the 2035 jobs in construction and the remainder in manufacturing and related sectors that will continue past the construction phase.

It is important to build up a domestic plastic manufacturing base not just for jobs or to reduce China dependence, but to have the flexibility to adapt to unknown future challenges, as demonstrated by China's ability to rapidly manufacture PPE when COVID hit and export it globally while the rest of the world struggled with shortages.

Core inflation may be artificially high as a measure because it includes shelter (about 40 percent of core inflation) which has a well-known one-year lag in the data reflecting the housing market of a year prior, and when rents have actually been falling for some time but not yet reflected in data, 'super core' inflation excluding rent is much lower.

High unemployment is not a desirable trade-off for achieving 2 percent inflation when the current economy is delivering pro-worker growth, rising real wages, and strong employment; throwing people out of work to hit a specific inflation number seems counterproductive.