The U.S. government’s raid on a Hyundai battery plant for electric cars in Ellabell, Georgia, last week was the economic policy equivalent of a cluster bomb, one of the dumbest types of military munitions.

When cluster bombs explode, they indiscriminately kill humans within a given radius, regardless of whose side they are on in a conflict or whether they are civilian or soldier. And so it was with the recent raid carried out by the Department of Homeland Security. While its nominal purpose seems to have been to signal the government’s unyielding intolerance of illegal immigration, the potential for collateral damage is remarkably widespread.

The U.S. government’s raid on a Hyundai battery plant for electric cars in Ellabell, Georgia, last week was the economic policy equivalent of a cluster bomb, one of the dumbest types of military munitions.

When cluster bombs explode, they indiscriminately kill humans within a given radius, regardless of whose side they are on in a conflict or whether they are civilian or soldier. And so it was with the recent raid carried out by the Department of Homeland Security. While its nominal purpose seems to have been to signal the government’s unyielding intolerance of illegal immigration, the potential for collateral damage is remarkably widespread.

The United States trails badly behind China in the competition to build electric vehicles, which most of the world sees as the automobile technology of the future. One of the key reasons for this is China’s head start in commercializing batteries that can be charged quickly and offer enough range to compete with gasoline-powered vehicles.

Regardless of what one thinks of U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, his administration’s decision to make the construction site of a cutting-edge battery factory one of its showiest examples of enforcement resolve seems almost guaranteed to inflict harm on the United States’ ability to hold its own in this critical area of rivalry with China.

Among this cluster-bomb approach’s many other areas of self-harm, a second relates to Trump’s oft-proclaimed plan to “Make America Great Again.” One of the........

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