Even in war, America’s business must go on

One hundred years ago, President Calvin Coolidge, famously said that “the chief business of the American people is business.” His comments came amid a period of pro-business regulation, technological advance, growth and impending economic uncertainty. 

The same can be said today. The parallels between the Coolidge-era 1920s and the 2020s are strikingly similar: soaring equity markets, transformative technologies reshaping productivity, and a cultural sense of economic momentum, paired with underlying structural vulnerabilities. There is also a symmetry between the then-prevailing strain of economic nationalism and today’s America First economic and political agenda.

For the last 25 years, American business and Chinese manufacturing formed the backbone of global growth. Today, American business is the engine driving the global economy, setting the pace for global growth. When America invests, the world innovates. When America buys, the world produces. And when America leads, the global economy moves in lockstep. But now, in the midst of a regional war and bilateral trade tensions, this tenet is being tested. 

Global conflict is reshaping supply chains in real time. American business has long depended on stable global trade routes, but the conflicts in Iran and Ukraine have disrupted shipping lanes, raised insurance costs for maritime transport and caused most companies to reroute their supply chains through India, Vietnam and Mexico. 

America remains the anchor, but the........

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