National Security as a Means to a Commercial End—Call for a New Approach

While corporations do not enjoy unfettered freedom—they are constrained by legal, political, and social requirements and expectations—governments must have legitimate grounds to compel corporations to act. After investigating the nationwide semiconductor shortage, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce recently warned that the government may invoke national security to compel disclosure of sensitive business information held by semiconductor producers. The government has also invoked national security to justify extensive tariffs imposed on imported steel and aluminum products, leading to a major trade dispute. Years of neoliberal policy have created a perceived (though not necessarily functional) separation between government and industry. This separation tends to encourage and to some extent necessitate the government to invoke the most compelling reasons, such as the irresistible national security grounds, to justify its interventions with private industry. This article explains the inherent risk of national security invocations to corporate freedom and international trade, and presents an alternative approach under which corporate interests and government industrial policy can be better aligned. There is a need to reconsider the role of government in the economy and private industry, and to adopt a new approach that will facilitate a mutually-beneficial partnership between government and industry to avoid inappropriate invocations of national security for commercial purposes in domestic and international contexts. The proposed partnership will not be inconsistent with the preservation of corporate autonomy and freedom but will actually help to preserve them when government interventions are inevitable to address national economic issues such as the current semiconductor shortage