Ikenomic Insights

  (Originally published at Forbes .) After months of signaling disapproval of Nippon Steel’s $14.9 billion bid to acquire U.S. Steel, President Biden deferred his decision on the fate of that deal until after the election. Hopefully that buys him time to appreciate the enormous economic and geopolitical costs of blocking that transaction on national security grounds. An honest assessment will find the proposed acquisition does not threaten national security, but the president’s rejection of the deal definitely would. One need not be hawkishly predisposed to notice that threats to U.S. critical infrastructure and our commercial and strategic interests are proliferating. It should also be obvious that those threats do not come from Japan, but predominantly from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. The governments in those countries are intent on undermining U.S. power and influence, and the institutions and alliances that reinforce that power and influence. It would be a colossal m...

  (Originally published at Forbes .) No single country in the world attracts more foreign direct investment than the United States. And no country’s businesses have invested more in the United States than Japan’s. That should be cause for celebration and flute-clinking in Washington this week, where President Biden is hosting Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. But Biden’s opposition to Nippon Steel’s proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel has rendered discussion of cross-border investment a bit uncomfortable. Rather than reiterate why Biden’s position is bad for the economy, bad for bilateral relations, bad for U.S. soft power, and bad for the administration’s whole “friendshoring” thing, this piece will toast some of the good things about the bilateral investment relationship that probably won’t make it into the official record. Let’s start with some statistics . The value of the stock of foreign direct investment in the United States (on a historical cost basis as of the end of 2...