Sen. Rubio assesses how the flawed bipartisan economic consensus went so tragically wrong and offers a clear-eyed approach to economic policy that can serve the national interest and the common good.

Twenty years ago, China joined the World Trade Organization to resounding approval from a neoliberal economic consensus that believed free trade was synonymous with free markets, led inexorably to free societies, and always generated widely shared prosperity. The consensus now lies in tatters, exposed by the ensuing decades as wishful thinking unmoored from the workings of nations and economies. American industry suffered, working families were left behind, and China rose to become an authoritarian adversary on the global stage. Senator Marco Rubio assesses how this flawed bipartisan economic consensus went so tragically wrong and offers a clear-eyed approach to economic policy that can serve the national interest and the common good.

Henry Clay was one of America’s greatest statesmen and the champion of the American System, a robust national economic agenda that supported extraordinary progress, prosperity, and security for nearly two centuries. It built canals, roadways, and highways; fostered industries from revolvers to airplanes to semiconductors; and buttressed the American Dream. Named in his honor, the Henry Clay Lecture in Political Economy presents the thinking of modern American leaders on the role of national economic policy in addressing contemporary challenges for American families, communities, and industry.

Read the adapted remarks as a Compass Point essay here: 20 Years of “Free Trade” with China