Since when did today’s American Right support expanding federal control of private companies?
President Donald Trump said Monday the U.S. government will take a 10% ownership stake in Intel through a “golden share” after announcing plans in June to do the same for U.S. Steel. That special share, in both deals, would give the federal government voting rights and other types of control over closing plants, moving workers, and investing capital, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Most conservatives 15 years ago would have balked at Trump’s de facto nationalization of the two companies. But today’s Right is not the Right of even 10 years ago.
It’s the latest slip in the Republican slide from a free-market, free-trade economic agenda to an industrial policy that coddles U.S. industry through tariffs, subsidies, and, now, government ownership. It’s also another stroke in Trump’s self-portrait as the great dealmaker, and he promised “many more” such deals. “I want to try to get as much as I can,” he told reporters Monday.
That “I” remark seems to signal that, for the president, this is more about cultivating an image than carrying out convictions. But for some of his potential successors — including Vice President JD Vance — this is a policy win for making the Right, especially the Republican Party, defenders of an industrial policy that would manage private companies.
This is a taste of what the conservative economic agenda could become after 2028. The GOP presidential primary will determine, at least for an election cycle, who represents the post-Trump Republican Party. That political battle will be fought on ideological grounds that are already taking shape.
On trade, taxes, and unions, many on the Right still hold traditional conservative positions. They believe that subsidies distort market incentives, that tariffs are deadweight taxes that hurt all trading partners, that broad-based tax cuts are better than loopholes and handouts, and that union interests don’t always align with worker interests.
But many others are trying to change these positions. Republican support for the 2022 subsidies for chip manufacturers signaled momentum toward government support. That government support has brought us to government control. Tax exemptions for tips and overtime are vote-buying carveouts, not tax cuts. The Trump administration’s secretary of labor was endorsed by the Teamsters Union. And Vance said in 2020 he’s “not a big fan” of right-to-work laws, which protect workers from being forced to join unions.
Neither side jockeying for the Right’s economic message has won yet, and what it means to be a conservative in the United States has always been changing. It’s true that we need to re-examine old ideas sometimes, but conservatives should reconsider whether they want to stand for government control of industry.
Thomas McKenna is a senior studying political economy.
