If you doubt that we’ve left the era of laissez-faire free trade, read a white paper put out late last year by the Chinese government. The title, China’s Export Controls, isn’t scintillating. But the conclusions are, at least to those who care about trade.

“The world is undergoing profound changes of a scale unseen in a century, with an increase in destabilising factors and uncertainties,” reads one passage. “The status and role of fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory export control measures is growing in importance as an effective means to address international and regional security risks and challenges and safeguard world peace and development.”

…

The new settlement should be economically fair and geopolitically secure, with an even playing field for businesses of all sizes, better wages and environmental standards, resilient supply chains and a thriving industrial commons. This is particularly important for innovation in industries such as semiconductors, where companies learn by making.

Once the overriding goals are in place, the administration can articulate coherent policies and craft strategic trade deals. This is exactly what China does. In fact it goes further, incorporating trade as one part of a much larger economic vision that is measured in decades, not quarters — or in the case of America’s previous president, tweets.

That kind of top-down planning is complicated, risky and inappropriate for the US. But more strategic thinking for a new world is not. “Trade is a tool,” says Lori Wallach, a trade lawyer who directs the Rethink Trade programme at the American Economic Liberties Project, a think-tank focused on breaking concentrations of economic power. “This administration has articulated goals like creating good jobs for workers with and without college degrees and strengthening economic resilience,” she adds, “and our trade policy and deals must deliver not damage that.”