A new American industrial policy, “Bidenomics,” is here in the form of the Inflation Reduction Act; the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act; and the CHIPS and Science Act. The proclaimed goals of Bidenomics are to speed a green energy transition to confront climate change, revive American manufacturing and union density, and check China’s economic and military power.

President Biden recently described this economic agenda as a “fundamental break from the economic theory that has failed America’s middle class for decades now, trickle-down economics.” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan criticized “a set of ideas that championed tax cutting and deregulation, privatization over public action, and trade liberalization as an end in itself,” synthesized in the belief “that markets always allocate capital productively and efficiently.” The Biden administration, in other words, has been forthrightly repudiating neoliberalism, at least on the level of rhetoric.

A new landscape for political and economic struggle is emerging, but many questions remain. While reviving working-class power and confronting climate change are critical goals, will Bidenomics actually help accomplish them? Does this new political-economic paradigm signal a sharp break from neoliberalism? How closely is Bidenomics linked to US policy concerns around Chinese dominance and the threat of a “New Cold War”? Finally, where do these policies leave the Global South?