What are the impacts of Trump administration punitive tariffs, export control sanctions, and foreign investment restrictions against China on the underlying technologies for these products and on their extended supply chains?  Has the Trump administration achieved success in reshoring manufacturing back to the United States or are manufacturing and related technologies going to other lower-cost economies, such as Vietnam, India or Mexico?

The Hinrich Foundation has just published a white paper that I wrote with Philip Rogers that looks at corporate programs, national policies, patent, trade and industrial data, etc. – to determine whether these supply-chain disruptions portend significant changes in manufacturing of IP-dependent products. One of the initial observations we made – using data from national patent offices and trade data – is that products made over extended supply chains are IP-dependent. The trade war that was intended to address IP theft is also disrupting IP-intensive manufacturing.

In our view, one solution to these disruptions that we explore is to look at innovation and wealth creation through new kinds of techno-globalist approaches to sourcing, manufacturing and innovating.

I welcome your thoughts!