Opinion / snark by Mathew Carr (pretending I’m American)
Speech at an American President’s Day overpriced-beef-burger cookout lunch…or perhaps a Chinese New Years Eve celebration:
Happy Presidents’ Day! Today, we honor the men who have led our nation.
And what better way to honor them than by pointing out that the last three, in their own unique ways, have collectively decided that the best way to beat America’s biggest rival is to… start acting a lot like them.
My thesis is simple: From Obama to Trump to Biden (and yes, back to Trump again), the U.S. has been on a quiet journey to adopt the economic playbook of the very country it’s trying to contain.
We’re kinda becoming a one-party state without a “Great Firewall,” and when it comes to business and trade, the工具箱 (gōngjùxiāng—toolbox) is starting to look surprisingly similar.
Let’s review the evidence, shall we?
The Case Files: How We Started Mimicking the “Rival”
🇺🇸 Barack Obama: The Accidental (?) Architect
· The Evidence: Remember 2008? While saving the banks was far-from standard crisis stuff, the Auto Industry Bailout was the government rolling up its sleeves and getting directly into the business of saving an industry.
Then came the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), a massive federal expansion into one-sixth of the economy, complete with mandates and subsidies.
Obama didn’t set out to emulate China, maybe. He just wanted to save your cousin’s job at the GM plant and make sure your other cousin with a pre-existing condition could get health insurance.
But in doing so, he normalized the idea that the federal government could and should be a major player in the market. It was one of the most potent and first, hesitant step toward a “national strategy.”
Think of it as the U.S. government dipping its toe into the pool of state-directed capitalism, while China was already doing cannonballs off the high dive.
· Similarity Dimension: “If you can’t beat ’em, partially nationalize ’em.”
A major expansion of the federal government’s regulatory and interventionist role.
🇺🇸 Donald Trump (Term 1): The Bull in the China Shop
· The Evidence: President Trump threw the free-market playbook out the window.
He launched a full-blown trade war with China using billions of dollars in tariffs. He didn’t trust the market to sort it out; he trusted a tariff spreadsheet. He also began the aggressive crackdown on Chinese tech firms like Huawei.
· Trump looked at 70 years of bipartisan U.S. trade policy and said, “Wrong. Tariffs are the answer and always have been.”
He became the anti-free trade President, a protectionist populist who slapped taxes on foreign goods to force companies to build in America.
It was economic nationalism with a Trump Tower twist.
He saw China playing a different game and decided the only way to win was to flip the board.
· Similarity Dimension: “America First, and your supply chains second.”
Aggressive economic nationalism and using the state as a blunt instrument to reshape global trade.
🇺🇸 Obama’s Joe Biden: The Bureaucrat Who Brought a Five-Year Plan to the Picnic
· The Evidence: If Trump flipped the board, President Biden built an entirely new, government-subsidized game on top of it.
The CHIPS and Science Act isn’t just a subsidy; it’s the government picking “national champion” industries and writing them a giant check.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is a climate bill, sure, but it’s also a massive industrial policy package designed to reshape the entire U.S. energy and auto sector through targeted tax credits.
· Joe Biden looked at China’s state-directed economic model and said, “You know, their Five-Year Plans are annoyingly effective. Let’s get ourselves one of those, but with better branding.”
He turned “industrial policy” from a dirty word into the law of the land. It’s the most un-ironic, direct adoption of China’s economic toolkit we’ve ever seen from a U.S. president. He’s basically saying, “We’re going to beat China by using their own playbook, but with union labor and stricter environmental reviews.”
· Similarity Dimension: “We’re building a fortress, and it’s going to have really, really good semiconductors.”
Explicit, large-scale industrial policy and strategic state investment.
🇺🇸 Donald Trump (Term 2 – The Encore): The Protectionist, Now with 100% More Grudges
· The Evidence:
If the pattern holds, a second Trump term means taking the “America First” economic nationalism of his first term and cranking it to 11.
Think expanded, across-the-board tariffs, an even more aggressive use of executive power to bully companies into domestic manufacturing, and a full-blown tech cold war with China.
· It’s the sequel nobody asked for, but everyone expected.
Trump 2: Electric Tariff-oo.
He’ll take the foundation Biden built (the idea that government should intervene) and use it for his own chaotic, deal-making purposes.
He’ll be less interested in building a coherent industrial policy and more interested in using the state’s leverage to punish his perceived enemies and reward his friends.
It’s state capitalism run by a reality TV star.
· Similarity Dimension: “You’re gonna have so many tariffs, you’ll be begging for the days of just subsidies.” Hyper-nationalism and the state as the ultimate tool for economic coercion.
The Bottom Line (The “But…” Part)
So, there you have it. Over three administrations, we’ve seen a stunning, bipartisan convergence toward a more Chinese-style economic model: industrial policy, trade protectionism, and strategic state intervention are no longer fringe ideas; they’re the new normal.
But (and this is a gigantic, 300-million-person “but”)…
This is where the humor meets the hard truth. For all this copying, the U.S. remains a chaotic, glorious, and in theory a different beast.
- We’re a democracy, not a dynasty….yet I’m less certain this is now true. Our industrial policy has to survive Congress, lobbyists, and cable news. China’s just… happens.
- We have the First Amendment. The government can give Intel billions for a chip plant, but it can’t stop the Intel Gobbler from publishing a scathing editorial about it. Try that in Shenzhen. Yet the propaganda out of the West’s press is super strong….too. At least China does not PRETEND its press is free.
- Our “national champions” can still tell the president to get lost. The CEO of Apple has more in common with the CEO of a Chinese tech giant than either would admit, but only one of them has to worry about disappearing if their innovation isn’t “harmonious.”
Final Verdict for our Presidents’ Day Cookout:
The last three presidents have made the U.S. more like China in method and possibly even in soul, as ICE kills Americans on its streets.
We’re building the same tools, but using them in a completely different, much louder, and frequently dysfunctional workshop.
We may not absolutely become China.
We’re just… borrowing their homework, changing a few answers, and hoping the teacher (the world) doesn’t notice.
Happy Presidents’ Day!
Now, who wants another hamburger—preferably one made from beef raised with the help of a completely chaotic and non-strategic mix of federal farm subsidies and free-market capitalism?
(Made with help from CarrZee research, ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Grok)
