I don’t know if Josh Hawley has ever been to Argentina, but it’s his spiritual home. He has a vision of America as the manufacturing center of the world, based on local content regulations for every product that has any reasonable connection to national security. It is a variant of Peronism, and a conceptual alternative to the dollar store economy supported by the vast majority of mainstream Republicans.
We’ve seen this movie before, and it doesn’t end well: cronyism; bureaucracy; inefficiency; soaring prices; and retaliation against our exports. It is a recipe for stagnation and misery, except for the handful of well-connected people who benefit directly from the protection of the new regulations.
At least the dollar store economy is efficient, even if it doesn’t distribute wealth fairly. The Peronist economy doesn’t get anything right.