When Vice President J.D. Vance spoke earlier this week at Andreessen Horowitz’s “American Dynamism” summit, he delivered a clear message: the United States must rebuild our industrial capacity and re-shore critical supply chains. While the speech was heavy on rhetoric and aimed at making the case for the current Administration’s tariff policies, the argument that American companies need to stop outsourcing jobs to China and instead invest more in the United States is absolutely correct. Although we disagree with many of the other points the Vice President made in the speech, the idea of pushing U.S. companies to prioritize the country’s best interests in their business decisions - what we call “Corporate Patriotism” - is one that we can get behind.
Rhetoric and tariffs alone won’t bring around this shift – it requires action from the private sector. If the United States wants to maintain its leadership role in the 21st century, the American business community must step up and play a more active role across the globe. We need them to embrace Corporate Patriotism: companies prioritizing long-term interests and the national security of the country in the same way they prioritize profits. In this era of strategic competition, the alignment of U.S. commercial interests with national strategic priorities is no longer a noble aspiration - it is a necessity.
The Global Leadership Vacuum
As former officials at the Department of State in the Biden Administration, we saw firsthand how economic security is national security. U.S. global economic leadership not only advances American foreign policy but also generates enormous returns at home.
The recent sentiment in the United States to deemphasize foreign aid creates a vacuum that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is eager to fill. While Washington looks inward, the rest of the world will not stand still. Xi Jinping is pursuing a calculated economic strategy that includes leveraging state-owned enterprises through the Belt and Road Initiative to advance its geopolitical goals. China has aggressively expanded its footprint worldwide, investing trillions into infrastructure projects across Africa, Latin America, and Asia. In many cases, this has led to outright economic coercion of developing countries through debt dependence and supply chain vulnerabilities - giving Beijing leverage over governments to advance PRC objectives in the United Nations and other multilateral institutions.
If the United States wants to remain the leader of the free world, our businesses must continue to step up. Without the private sector playing a more active role, Washington risks not only economic vulnerabilities at home but also further ceding its global leadership to Beijing.
A Call to Action
Enter Corporate Patriotism. U.S. companies operating globally areWashington’s best Ambassadors - they represent the American brand and reinforce that its way of doing business is a force for good.They demonstrate the U.S. ideals that market competition, high standards for labor and environmental protection, and investments in local communities leads to lasting prosperity. They can fill the leadership void – not just as economic actors, but as champions of human rights, democracy, and economic development.
The idea of Corporate Patriotism is not new. In the 1930s and 1940s, American industry played a pivotal role in advancing U.S. national security, transforming the nation into the “Arsenal of Democracy” that ultimately helped the Allies win World War II. Companies that built cars pivoted to manufacturing tanks and planes, while others developed cutting-edge technology to aid the war effort. This historical precedent underscores how private enterprise can and must align with the nation’s strategic interests in times of global competition.
Today, just as then, the private sector must rise to the challenge - not by producing weapons, but by investing in markets that reinforce American leadership. Corporate Patriotism means making investments in countries around the world that uphold democracy, national security, and economic resilience – not just the most cost-efficient option. U.S. companies, if they invest abroad, can and should choose strategic markets critical to U.S. foreign policy – places like Ukraine, India, Southeast Asia, Latin America, or Sub-Saharan Africa – and use their power to promote development and principles like freedom, sovereignty, and the rule of law.
This is not a call for corporate leaders to leverage political influence for private gain, nor should it be seen as endorsing a new “American Oligarchy”. Corporate Patriotism is about the broader U.S. business community, from small enterprises to multinational corporations, aligning their global footprint with Washington’s strategic priorities.
Some will argue that corporations exist to maximize shareholder returns – not to act as patriots. However, the truth is that the success of these businesses and the strength of U.S. leadership on the global stage are inextricably linked. One cannot succeed without the other.
Many American CEOs already understand this.In 2021, Warren Buffet wrote to his shareholders that when investors see an American flag, they should say thank you. This is not a call to abandon profits – it is about recognizing that long-term commercial success depends on the strength and stability of the United States. American leadership comes at a cost, and the U.S. business community must play its part in paying it. That means ensuring their investments and capital decisions strengthen the country rather than weaken it.
Now or Never
The global demand for U.S. investment is real, and so is the need for American leadership. Beijing has shown Washington that it must use all elements of its economic power if it wants to maintain its competitiveness – and that includes utilizing its commercial actors.
The American business community has a historic opportunity to define what Corporate Patriotism looks like today. If the United States wants to truly maintain its status as the world’s standard-bearer for democracy, freedom, and prosperity, business leaders must continue to serve as beacons of leadership and champion American values worldwide. If they do not, others will inevitably fill the void - and the United States will undoubtedly regret it.
