Abundance as a Foreign Policy |
Across advanced economies, a new axis of politics is emerging: scarcity versus abundance. Rising prices, stalled infrastructure, and eroding industrial competitiveness reflect constraints on building and innovation. Trade disruptions and inadequate state capacity compound the challenge. In response, a cross-partisan abundance movement offers a path to expand the supply of vital goods and services—infrastructure, energy, health care, and housing—while responding to voters’ growing affordability concerns.
Abundance is both a goal and a lens for overcoming the regulatory and capacity barriers that constrain supply. Yet the debate has focused mainly on domestic issues, such as zoning and permitting, even though its success depends on international flows of goods, capital, knowledge, and energy. Many supply constraints originate abroad, and tools for overcoming them span trade, diplomacy, and international economic policy. A foreign policy for abundance is therefore essential to its success—in the United States, among allies and partners, and perhaps even to underwrite global public goods.
Across advanced economies, a new axis of politics is emerging: scarcity versus abundance. Rising prices, stalled infrastructure, and eroding industrial competitiveness reflect constraints on building and innovation. Trade disruptions and inadequate state capacity compound the challenge. In response, a cross-partisan abundance movement offers a path to expand the supply of vital goods and services—infrastructure, energy, health care, and housing—while responding to voters’ growing affordability concerns.
Abundance is both a goal and a lens for overcoming the regulatory and capacity barriers that constrain supply. Yet the debate has focused mainly on domestic issues, such as zoning and permitting, even though its success depends on international flows of goods, capital, knowledge, and energy. Many supply constraints originate abroad, and tools for overcoming them span trade, diplomacy, and international economic policy. A foreign policy for abundance is therefore essential to its success—in the United States, among allies and partners, and perhaps even to underwrite global public goods.
Pursuing such a foreign policy requires answering two key questions: How can international economic and diplomatic tools deliver abundance at home? And how can domestic abundance reinforce national power and leverage abroad?
Abundance can serve multiple goals, from improving quality of life through better housing and infrastructure to strengthening allied defense capacity and enhancing U.S. competitiveness with China. These objectives reflect a shared reality: The infrastructure, energy, and technology challenges that shape modern life span borders, and no nation can tackle them alone. In an era of intensifying competition, the ability to build and innovate quickly and affordably is a strategic asset.
U.S. domestic progress has often been rooted in foreign-policy pressures. Wartime mobilization in World War II and Cold War initiatives supported breakthroughs—from industrial capacity........