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Jonas Nahm

@jonasnahm.com
19K followers 1K following 1.8K posts

Associate Professor at Hopkins/SAIS. Former White House industrial strategy economist. Industrial policy, trade, climate, economic security. Views my own. DC | HNL. 🏳️‍🌈

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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 22/09/2026
Bush and Cornyn are picking which trees to save while helping torch the forest — funding the Republicans they respect still means funding a Senate majority run by the ones they don't. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/21/u...
nytimes.com
George W. Bush and Cornyn Leave Out Paxton as They Raise Cash for Senate Candidates
The former president and Texas senator are headlining a fund-raiser in Dallas for top Republican Senate candidates. Not included: Ken Paxton, the nominee in their own state.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 22/09/2026
I learned something from this: www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...
washingtonpost.com
Opinion | I ran a German newspaper. Here’s what I got wrong about East Germans.
German liberals learned to take everyone’s identity seriously — except that of East Germans.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 17/09/2026
1/ Von der Leyen just offered Canada "associate membership" in the EU in her State of the Union address. Carney was in the chamber. Standing ovation. Perhaps the clearest sign yet that some countries are actively trying to build a new architecture for global trade.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 16/09/2026
28th state rebuke to the 51st state talk coming from the Trump admin. Lots of practical hurdles and questions about scope of EU partnership, but a clear signal in favor of stability and predictability. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/w...
nytimes.com
E.U. Offers to Make Canada ‘Associate Member’ as U.S. Ties Weaken for Both
Canada and the European Union have been confronting an increasingly challenging relationship with the United States under President Trump.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 14/09/2026
The week my @foreignaffairs.com piece on Europe's hidden trade advantage published, the WSJ reports Canada is exploring a "unique alliance" with the EU — after walking away from US trade talks in August. The argument, unfolding in real time. www.wsj.com/world/europe...
wsj.com
Exclusive | Mark Carney’s Audacious Bid to Make Canada an ‘Associate Member’ of the EU
As trade talks with the U.S. collapse, prime minister pursues a major—and risky—pivot to Europe; an Ottawa book club plays its part.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 14/09/2026
1/ New piece in Foreign Affairs on why EU bureaucracy — long a favorite punchline — turns out to be a hidden source of power. www.foreignaffairs.com/europe/europ...
foreignaffairs.com
Europe’s Hidden Trade Advantage
Slow and steady wins the negotiation.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 02/09/2026
1/ The Connected Vehicle Security Act frames Chinese EV competition as a security and unfair-trade problem. That framing assumes US auto decline is being done to the industry, rather than coming from problems the industry hasn't fixed on its own. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/31/b...
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 18/08/2026
1/ The FCC added robots to its Covered List. New foreign humanoids, quadrupeds, even vacuums and mowers now need US assembly and 65% domestic content by value to sell here. That threshold rises to 75% in 2029.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 11/08/2026
1/ The New York Times has a piece out on humanoid robots coming to car factories, at BMW, Hyundai, Mercedes. I am skeptical and think this is mostly not going to work as industrial automation, and the economics explain why. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/11/b...
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 10/08/2026
1/ On July 28 the FCC added advanced robotic devices and power inverters to its Covered List, the roster of equipment judged an unacceptable national security risk. New models can no longer get the FCC authorization required to be sold in the US.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 10/08/2026
your tax dollars at work
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 07/08/2026
1/ The NEIS Center has been publishing on industrial strategy for a year now. My own take on where the research has landed: some questions we've made real progress on, some assumptions that shifted, and some genuinely new questions. neiscenter.substack.com/p/green-indu...
neiscenter.substack.com
Green Industrial Strategy: What a Year Has Taught Us
The NEIS Center's Jonas Nahm reflects on how our research has enhanced our understanding of industrial strategy, and what's to come.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 04/08/2026
1/ The Economist has a piece on Chinese firms selling off US solar/battery assets after the FEOC rules kicked in. It documents the fire sale well but misses what's actually being bought and sold. www.economist.com/china/2026/0...
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Todd Tucker @toddntucker.com · 30/07/2026
16. CEA alum @jonasnahm.com and @danieldrisc.com turn to the question of America's growth model - and how different clean production strategies can lean into it, or may need to tilt against it. They call for an honest reckoning with the trade-offs of either. rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...
rooseveltinstitute.org
Decarbonize America’s Growth Model
How the U.S. growth model shapes climate and industrial policy, and why balancing domestic manufacturing with consumer demand is key to decarbonization.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 29/07/2026
1/ Beijing just put out a white paper defending itself against overcapacity charges. It's worth reading — not because it settles the debate, but because it shows how much work that one phrase has been doing for the West, and how differently we should be treating its parts.
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Simon Evans @drsimevans.carbonbrief.org · 27/07/2026
🔥🔥🔥Newspaper frontpages🔥🔥🔥
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 28/07/2026
1/ Last Friday Trump replaced the expired IEEPA-based tariffs with new 10-12.5% tariffs on 60 countries — this time under Section 301, citing failure to police forced labor in supply chains.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 22/07/2026
The greedflation critique of 2020-23 is fine on its own terms, I just don't think it tells us much about what's happening now.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 22/07/2026
1/ Trump's OSTP just dropped "A New Golden Age" — a big vision for reforming US science: less bureaucracy, more risk-taking, DARPA-style bold bets. Sounds great. Except it's landing inside an administration whose actual actions look nothing like it. www.whitehouse.gov/science/#cover
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Kai Ryssdal @kairyssdal.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Important thread, esp the last line of the last post
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 21/07/2026
1/ Trump signed 50% tariffs on Canada today under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930. Worth walking through the legal mechanics, the USMCA leverage play behind it, and what it costs.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 23/06/2026
1/ The USMCA — nearly $2 trillion in annual North American trade — hits its renewal deadline July 1. US-Mexico talks only started in May, with a third round scheduled for July 20. A decision by July 1 is not happening.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 23/06/2026
1/ The USMCA — nearly $2 trillion in annual North American trade — hits its renewal deadline July 1. US-Mexico talks only started in May, with a third round scheduled for July 20. A decision by July 1 is not happening.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 21/06/2026
1/ Good interview with John Minnich on the history of China's technology transfer policies and what western governments might learn from them today. A few takeaways: www.ft.com/content/6f53...
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Zoe Samuel @zoesamuel.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
Good thread about how the #green coalition has now added people who care about #affordability, the #economy #nationalsecurity, and sticking it to petro-dictators. #climatesolutions #climate #cleantech
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Zoe Samuel @zoesamuel.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
Seeing the inversion at work in energy/transportation is enormously motivating for me, as someone looking at built environment, industry, ag, etc. Things like regen ag halving fertilizer cost are showing that it will happen across the board. Not as fast as I'd have liked, but it's happening.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 20/06/2026
1/ The purpose of green industrial policy has inverted. It used to pay for a public good: clean energy that cost more, benefiting everyone. Now it captures advantages a country keeps for itself. That shift, from a shared cost to a prize seized, is the story of the transition.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 10/06/2026
1/ China's May trade data just complicated the story Washington tells itself about decoupling. Exports to the US jumped 35% — the fastest pace in five years — led by the inputs feeding America's own AI build-out.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 16/05/2026
1/ Amid all the hype around China's 15th FYP, worth revisiting this CTVC piece to understand how clean tech financing actually works in China — and what it means for Western strategy. www.ctvc.co/an-insiders-...
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 12/05/2026
1/ New report from Roosevelt pushing back on "manufacturing doomerism." The sector data is important and underappreciated. But I think it also inadvertently makes a case it doesn't intend to make. rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...
rooseveltinstitute.org
Against Manufacturing Doomerism: Why and How Making Stuff Matters
This report by Todd Tucker and Oskar Dye-Furstenberg examines US manufacturing’s evolving role, highlighting its continued importance for innovation, productivity, and exports despite a declining…
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 11/05/2026
1/ New piece on the NEIS Center Substack by @luukschmitz.bsky.social: conditionality in industrial policy isn't just a safeguard against waste — it also has real costs. And those costs are systematically underweighted in the current debate. neiscenter.substack.com/p/industrial...
neiscenter.substack.com
Industrial Policy Conditionality: A Guide for Users
Public debate treats conditionality as a single dial to be turned up or down to impose stricter discipline on private actors. That framing obscures the choices that actually matter.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 03/05/2026
Spring in Beijing
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 03/05/2026
1/ The EU-Mercosur deal entered into force last week. 25 years of negotiations, 700 million people, the largest trade agreement the EU has ever signed. Brazil's president framed it as a response to Trump's tariffs and a reaffirmation of multilateralism.
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Bentley Allan @bentleyallan.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Catherine Goldberg and I have a new piece on the New Energy /Industrial Strategy Center's substack on what my lab's flagship project--the Clean Industrial Capabilities Explorer--reveals about the global race for clean energy manufacturing. 🧵
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 24/02/2026
China automates while America hesitates. I have a piece in the NYT today arguing that America's strategy to compete with China in manufacturing is fundamentally misconceived — and that we're heading toward a reckoning we're not prepared for. 1/ www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | America Has an Edge Over China. Why Won’t We Use It?
American manufacturing prowess won’t be restored without bringing new technologies to the factory floor.
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Jeremy Wallace @jeremywallace.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
You need to read this. by @jonasnahm.com www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | China Automates While America Hesitates
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Filipe Campante @filipecampante.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
This is an excellent article by my colleague @jonasnahm.com. American innovation has been captured by a Silicon Valley mindset, and this has important disadvantages... www.nytimes.com/2026/02/24/o...
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Heatmap News @heatmap.news · 21/02/2026
New on SHIFT KEY: @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social hosts an emergency episode with Johns Hopkins’ @jonasnahm.com on the Supreme Court’s tariff ruling and what it all means for the energy transition. Check it out here or wherever you get your podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...
podcasts.apple.com
What the Supreme Court’s Tariff Ruling Means for the Energy Transition
Podcast Episode · Shift Key with Robinson Meyer · February 21 · 30m
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Robinson Meyer @robinsonmeyer.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
Today on a special emergency episode of Shift Key: I’m joined by the great @jonasnahm.com to discuss the big SCOTUS tariff ruling; what it means for solar, EVs, and electricity; and why it’s time (alas) to learn about the other tariff powers the president can use — as well as their limitations.
heatmap.news
What the Supreme Court’s Tariff Ruling Means for the Energy Transition
In this emergency episode, Rob unpacks the decision with international supply chain specialist Jonas Nahm.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 18/02/2026
The Trump admin this month made its biggest move yet on critical minerals: a $12B commercial stockpile and a 50+ country trading bloc. I unpacked what these tools can and can't do in a new piece with Abby Wulf and Sarah Ladislaw. 1/
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 11/02/2026
Economy added 130K jobs in January, but manufacturing gained just 5,000—after a long slide in the fall. Tariffs were supposed to bring production back, but factories still aren't hiring.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 09/02/2026
This WSJ story about a Chinese auto-glass plant in Ohio is interesting less as a China story than as a window into the challenges of U.S. industrial policy going forward. 1/ www.wsj.com/business/tar...
wsj.com
The Chinese Factory That Opened in the U.S. and Clobbered Its Rivals
President Trump has pressured trading partners for investment in U.S. manufacturing plants. What if local industries can’t compete?
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 08/02/2026
This @nytopinion.nytimes.com op-ed on rare earths repeats a misleading story: that China dominates these industries mainly because of lax labor and environmental standards. It sounds intuitive, but it’s analytically wrong in ways that matter for policy. 1/ www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | America’s Rare-Earths Solution Is Hiding in Plain Sight
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 07/02/2026
Listened to this Oddlots episode with utilities analyst Andy DeVries this morning. Some useful pushback on the data center/AI power demand narrative that's worth working through. 1/ www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
The Utilities Analyst Who Says the Data Center Demand Story Doesn't Add Up
Utilities may be building twice as much power as needed.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 07/02/2026
New essay by @steffenmurau.bsky.social on Trump admin's misunderstanding of dollar hegemony—and four possible futures for the international monetary system. 1/ www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/tru...
phenomenalworld.org
Trump's Dollar | Steffen Murau
Calls to weaken the dollar have become a feature of Trump's second term. But in today's credit-based system, where the US currency is often created offshore, nativist politics cannot be translated int...
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 19/01/2026
1/ New Kiel Institute study on 2025 tariffs. The headline finding won't shock anyone who studied 2018-19 tariffs: near-complete pass-through to US importers. Foreign exporters absorbed ~4% of burden; Americans paid ~96%. www.kielinstitut.de/publications...
kielinstitut.de
America’s Own Goal: Who Pays the Tariffs? - Kiel Institute
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 31/12/2025
1/ Interesting recent writing by @cornelban.bsky.social on “decoupling” in the auto sector — and why, on the ground, it’s largely fiction. German automakers aren’t pulling out of China. They’re re-anchoring there. substack.com/home/post/p-...
substack.com
Forget decoupling. German automakers go back to China to stay alive in the EV race
The Great Reanchoring of Das Auto in China Inc.
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 15/12/2025
China has achieved first-mover advantage in autonomous, connected, electric (ACE) vehicles. The US response has been tariffs and market isolation. A new CFR paper by @profdavidhart.bsky.social argues this is a trap—we need to compete, not retreat. 1/ www.cfr.org/report/compe...
cfr.org
Compete, Don’t Retreat
The primary U.S. response to China’s first-mover advantages in emerging auto technologies has been protection. A smarter strategy would seek to compete by supporting producers and collaborating with …
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 15/12/2025
The EU hasn’t abandoned the EV transition — it has softened the symbolism while preserving the substance. That’s exactly what you’d expect when technology bans function as industrial policy signals rather than irreversible environmental commitments. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Jonas Nahm @jonasnahm.com · 24/10/2025
Industrial policy is back — and it's changing fast. What started as "green" strategy is now a global race for clean tech competitiveness and economic security. But do we actually know what works? That's what we're asking at the New Energy Industrial Strategy (NEIS) Center. /1
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