Washington, Mar 20 (Agency) Muscular moves against two foreign companies recently showed how Washington has abandoned its embrace of international openness and champions a more nationalist, protectionist economic vision, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. First, the House voted overwhelmingly across party lines to ban or force the sale of TikTok. Then, President Joe Biden released an unusual statement opposing the Japanese company Nippon Steel’s bid for United States Steel, which he said should stay in U.S. hands, according to the article published Saturday. The actions demonstrate that national security considerations are bleeding into ever larger swaths of American life and economic activity.
That could chill foreign investors’ and companies’ willingness to do business in the United States, according to the article. Until 2016, leaders in both parties generally bought into the so-called Washington consensus: openness to foreign trade and investment and minimal government interference in markets, it said. Donald Trump, when he served as U.S. president, broke decisively with that by imposing tariffs on China and allies, and Biden has continued many of those policies, it added. Biden’s statement is in tension with the open investment policy that he and other presidents have espoused. Stephen Heifetz, a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, was quoted as saying this by the WSJ.