The more strategic move is simpler, dumber even: tariff everything. Create a durable preference for production in the United States, across the whole industrial base, and let entrepreneurs, engineers, and manufacturers discover where the next breakthroughs will come. The scalpel has its place, but the blunt force object is the tool for this job. For those who really want to “rebuild our manufacturing and our resilience,” it’s time to start hammering.

As the United States embarks on the next great buildout of strategic infrastructure in the form of AI data centers, it must ensure that the material supply chain for the interstates that underpin it all remains secure and modern.

The story of the highway system is, in many ways, the story of public infrastructure more broadly. What appears as a transportation challenge is in fact a reflection of a deeper structural issue: governments built vast systems in an era of expansion but have yet to fully adapt to the demands of long-term stewardship.

Too many seem to think that in a handful of years, Americans will wake up to a technofuturist version of the 1950s, when Uncle Sam’s rolled sleeves, brawny forearms, and dexterous hands peerlessly delivered the world’s goods. A necessary and uplifting vision to be sure, but let Potter pour cold water on it. After all, the United States had decades of process knowledge to build on when it tooled up for World War II, and what do we have now?

We are not naïve about the political difficulties surrounding immigration, but we nonetheless wish to underscore the plight and wellbeing of disadvantaged native workers, a group that both parties claim to have some affinity for, either now or in the recent past; recognizing labor market security as an essential factor in advancing their economic future should be the way forward for American policymakers of all stripes.

The Defense Production Act (DPA) of 1950 is a survivor of the broad World War II–era powers that once belonged to the executive branch. Based on the War Powers Acts of 1941 and 1942, the DPA “confers upon the President a broad set of authorities to influence domestic industry in the interest of national defense.” Since the opening of the Cold War, however, Congress has clawed back some of the more expansive authorities (e.g., price controls). Only Titles I, III, and VII have survived reauthorization into the present…

Our goal must not be a redux of World Wars I and II, when the United States used its superior industrial might to arm European powers. The goal must not be a wealthy deindustrialized Europe rich enough to buy the products of American industrial might, but a Europe dynamic enough to have its own robust production, with both continents benefiting from the other’s capability.

MAHA promises a country that is stronger, healthier, and more resilient. Achieving that vision does not require indiscriminate expansion of the public health bureaucracy; it requires a federal government that knows where to act—and where to stop. Indoor air quality is an ideal proving ground for this kind of restrained, evidence-based public health policy.

If the United States cannot manufacture what it needs to sustain and defend its critical industries, its ability to maintain its security and independence is put at risk. Ensuring domestic nitrile glove supply is not a matter of industrial nostalgia or protectionism; it is a practical, targeted response to a vulnerability hiding in plain sight.