Welcome to Biden’s Tale of WOE

President Biden may practice old-style Democratic coalition politics, but his party's progressives have gotten a sweet deal. Look no further than the White House's embrace of national economic planning. The younger generation wants a sharp break with the past, and the president is listening. Mr. Biden's new model is the Washington Ordered Economy: a tale of WOE.
 
National security adviser Jake Sullivan recently laid out the theory, explaining the link between U.S. international and industrial policies. In a speech at the Brookings Institution, Mr. Sullivan rejected Clinton and Obama-era orthodoxies as contributing to 50 years of American economic decay. The "new Washington consensus," as Mr. Sullivan labeled it, yearns for the national and global economies of a century ago, though now augmented by Washington planning, mandates and financing.
 
The new economic and social order incorporates six connected elements. The first is an aversion to trade. The new planners in Washington need trade barriers to limit competition with their protected national economy and reward special interests. But protectionist tariffs add to everyone's bills. The U.S. has given up negotiating open markets abroad and lowering prices at home. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai told a union panel in Detroit that trade policy had focused too much on liberalization, efficiencies and lower costs.