The Dynamist

The U.S. production base has slipped: China passed America in manufacturing output in 2011 and last year ran a surplus roughly equal to Britain’s entire GDP; at current capacity, it would take the United States about eight years to replace key munitions at wartime production rates. The urgency has propelled an alliance of think tanks — the Foundation for American Innovation, American Compass, Institute for Progress, and  New American Industrial Alliance — to publish the Techno-Industrial Policy Playbook [https://www.rebuilding.tech/].  Their proposals span three critical pillars: Industrial Power, Frontier Science and Technology, and National Security. They range from ambitious initiatives like "Project Paperclip 2.0 [https://www.rebuilding.tech/posts/launching-project-paperclip-2-0-to-recruit-top-scientists]" to fast-track foreign-born STEM PhDs, to establishing twenty “X-Labs [https://www.rebuilding.tech/posts/launching-x-labs-for-transformative-science-funding]” at $50 million each for transformative science funding. They also advocate for "Special Compute Zones [https://www.rebuilding.tech/posts/establishing-special-compute-zones]" that would waive certain environmental requirements to rapidly scale up AI computing infrastructure, treating computational capacity with the same urgency America once reserved for World War II shipyards. As the United States finds itself at a techno-industrial crossroads, is America capable of marshaling the political will and institutional capacity needed to reverse decades of industrial decline? Can these ambitious proposals navigate the complex realities of American governance while delivering meaningful results? Or is this comprehensive vision destined to join countless other policy recommendations in Washington's archive of unfulfilled potential? Evan is joined by the architects behind this effort: Kelvin Yu [https://www.thefai.org/profile/kelvin-yu], lead author and a non-resident fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation; Chris Griswold [https://x.com/chris_griz?lang=en], Policy Director at American Compass; Santi Ruiz [https://ifp.org/author/santi-ruiz/], Senior Editor at the Institute for Progress; and Robert Bellafiore [https://www.thefai.org/profile/robertbellafiore], Managing Director for Policy at FAI.

President Trump’s tariffs on China have highlighted how much American companies, and consumers, depend on products made in China. And arguably no company has been more exposed than Apple.  The conventional wisdom in the West is that Apple and other corporations simply flocked to China for cheap, unskilled labor. While that is true, it masks the depth of Apple’s relationship with the Middle Kingdom. Yes, Apple products are made in China. But Apple also made China—at least the advanced technological China confronting the U.S. today. From training tens of millions of workers, to investing hundreds of billions in the country, our guest today argues that Apple has done more than anyone, or anything, to make China a manufacturing powerhouse.  As one tech analyst observed, “It’s hard to reconcile the fact that the greatest American company, the most capitalist thing in the world, survives on the basis of a country that has Communist in its title.” So how did America’s most iconic tech company become so invested in, and dependent on, the U.S.’s chief global adversary? What did Apple CEO Tim Cook know about what was happening, and when did he know it? How might the world look but for these investments? And as the U.S. government urges companies to de-risk and decouple from China, what position does that put Apple in? Evan is joined by Patrick McGee [https://patrick-mcgee.com/]. He was the Financial Times’s Apple reporter from 2019 to 2023 and is now the author of Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Apple-in-China/Patrick-McGee/9781668053379].

Nuclear power is experiencing a notable revival in policy circles. The Trump administration has moved quickly on this front, drafting executive orders to accelerate plant construction, directing the Pentagon to explore reactor installations on military bases, and reshaping the regulatory landscape. A recent $900 million solicitation for small modular reactors (SMRs) has been modified to emphasize technical merit and streamline deployment. But can America's nuclear renaissance actually deliver? Traditional nuclear plants remain staggeringly expensive—the recent Vogtle reactors in Georgia arrived seven years late and $35 billion over budget (the kind of numbers that make even venture capitalists nervous). A dozen startups are betting smaller, modular designs can slash costs and deployment times, but they face the triple threat of regulatory uncertainty, NIMBY resistance, and an energy market still obsessed with quarterly returns. Yet the alignment of energy security needs, climate goals, and now AI's voracious power requirements creates a potential inflection point for nuclear technology. Joining us to explore these questions are Ed Petit de Mange, Director of Fuel Recycling at Oklo [https://oklo.com/overview/default.aspx], whose next-generation microreactors can operate on recycled nuclear fuel; Patrick O'Brien, Director of Government Affairs at Holtec International [https://holtecinternational.com/], bringing decades of industry experience to the SMR revolution, Kathleen Nelson Romans, Head of Commercial Development at Aalo Atomics [https://www.aalo.com/], whose compact reactors aim to serve rapidly deployable off-grid and microgrid applications, and Emmet Penney [https://www.thefai.org/profile/emmet-penney], energy writer and Senior Fellow at FAI, who provides critical context on nuclear's role in our energy transition.

Most American parents say technology makes it harder to raise kids than in the pre-social media era. And while social scientists debate the exact impact of ubiquitous Internet access on children, policymakers are increasingly responding to parents’ concerns.  The Kids Online Safety Act, which aims to address the addictive features of social media that hook kids, was recently reintroduced [https://www.blumenthal.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/blumenthal-blackburn-thune-and-schumer-introduce-the-kids-online-safety-act] by Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). The legislation would also require tech platforms to take steps to prevent and mitigate specific dangers to minors, including the promotion of suicide, eating disorders, drug abuse, and sexploitation. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rep. John James (R-MI) are promoting [https://www.lee.senate.gov/2025/5/lee-introduces-bill-to-protect-children-online-hold-app-stores-accountable] the App Store Accountability Act, which would require Google and Apple to verify users’ ages before downloading apps. And Senators Cruz (R-TX) and Schatz (D-HI) propose [https://www.schatz.senate.gov/news/press-releases/01/28/2025/schatz-cruz-murphy-britt-introduce-bipartisan-legislation-to-keep-kids-safe-healthy-off-social-media] banning kids from using social media altogether. There is clearly a lot of interest from parents and policymakers in addressing these concerns over the impact of technology on children. But there is also a robust and ongoing debate about the actual harm to kids, and whether concerns are well founded or overblown. Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Anxious Generation [https://www.amazon.com/Anxious-Generation-Rewiring-Childhood-Epidemic/dp/0593655036] made quite a splash, but many social psychologists have pushed back on his findings. And while the surgeon general under President Biden advocated a warning label for social media, a recent study [https://www.stpetersburg.usf.edu/news/2025/results-from-usf-study-on-kids-digital-media-use-reveal-benefits-of-smartphones.aspx] by researchers at the University of South Florida found that kids with smartphones were better off than those without smartphones, while acknowledging harms from cyber bullying and otherwise. The fundamental question seems to be: Is this just another moral panic, or are we letting Big Tech conduct a massive unregulated experiment on our children's brains? Evan is joined by Clare Morell [https://eppc.org/author/clare_morell/], Director of the Technology and Human Flourishing Project at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. She is the author of The Tech Exit: A Practical Guide to Freeing Kids and Teens from Smartphones [https://www.amazon.com/Tech-Exit-Practical-Freeing-Smartphones/dp/059373629X], and her work has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Fox News.

America's infrastructure future isn't being decided in Washington—it's being fought permit by permit [https://permittingscorecard.com/] in state capitals across the country. While politicians talk about building more, the real bottlenecks are happening where rubber meets bureaucratic road. From Donald Trump to Pete Buttigieg, everyone agrees: America has forgotten how to build things. But even if Washington cleared every federal rule tomorrow, states would still hold the keys to actually breaking ground. Whether it's Clean Air Act permits, water discharge approvals, or the maze of mini-NEPAs and local reviews, states issue most of the paperwork that determines if your project lives or dies. This isn't just red tape—it can be competitive advantage. States that master the art of streamlined permitting without sacrificing environmental standards can capture billions in reshoring investment. Digital dashboards, consolidated reviews, shot-clocks with automatic approvals—these bureaucratic innovations are becoming economic development superpowers. Federal dollars from infrastructure, CHIPS, and climate bills are queued up, but shovels aren't hitting the ground. From geothermal in California to advanced nuclear in Montana, nearly every clean technology faces its first real test at the state level.  Joining us are Emmet Penney [https://www.thefai.org/profile/thomas-hochman], Senior Fellow at FAI focusing on Infrastructure and Energy, and Thomas Hochman [https://www.thefai.org/profile/thomas-hochman], Director of Infrastructure Policy at FAI. For more on what's working and what's not, check out their State Permitting Playbook [https://www.thefai.org/posts/the-state-permitting-playbook] and the new State Permitting Scorecard [https://permittingscorecard.com/].