Japanese Cherry Blossom trees bloom along the National Mall on March 28, 2021, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Al Drago/Getty Images)

Prior to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s meeting with President Joe Biden, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb discussed the importance of Japanese investment to American prosperity at a Hudson event with Japanese and American experts and officials.

Key takeaways from the event are below. Read, watch, or listen to the full event here.

Key Insights

1. Economic isolationism weakens the United States.

“So please, consider Indiana as Exhibit A in the case against economic isolationism. The mutual attraction of open innovation-driven, market-oriented societies is powerful for the simple reason that one plus one between such societies equals much more than two. We’re stronger together, as you say, as in e pluribus unum. There truly is, out of many markets, one stronger one. This is true across the Atlantic; it’s true across the Pacific; it’s evident between the US and Australia, India, South Korea, Taiwan. And of course, Japan proves it every day in every way.”

— Governor Eric Holcomb

2. America and its allies need to collaborate.

“Allies and like-minded partners like Japan, US, Korea, Taiwan, European Union . . . should go together to provide assurance for the future of national security. . . . To implement economic security, we need strategic collaboration between government and industries, because businesses own the assets in economic security. So therefore, METI [the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry], together with the National Security Secretariat of Japan and other related ministries, are very keen to invest and implement economic security together with industries, allies, and like-minded countries. And the most important country is the United States.”

— METI Principal Director Kazumi Nishikawa

3. China does not play by the same rules as free economies.

“The term friendshoring is a broad one, but let’s define it to include production both inside and outside the United States for taking advantage of complementary capacities. I think we just need to admit that we can’t do everything efficiently on our own and we have to develop this ecosystem of friends. . . . It has to continue to operate at an international level, and that’s some form of economic efficiency. By the way, we need to cut China out of that system because they don’t play by the same rules.”

— Hudson Senior Fellow Thomas J. Duesterberg

4. Governments need to work together with private industry.

“Programs like [the CHIPS and Science Act] are meant to really indicate to the market: This is where we’re going. We have a ton of capital. We’re pushing this way. We also have end users in the government that are going to buy this. And so we’re trying to kind of vertically integrate this supply chain and the demand signal all into one so that then the market, the $2 trillion of dry powder that you hear that’s currently in the market or the $46 trillion of capital that is the US economy in the investing space, can really start angling in on that saying, ‘Of these critical technologies or of these insufficient areas, these are the ones that matter most and [the Office of Strategic Capital or Defense Innovation Unit] is going to work with you to do that.’ . . . And of course the whole backdrop of this is doing with allies and partners.”

— Office of the Secretary of Defense Senior Advisor David Rader

Quotes may be edited for clarity and length. 

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