This week’s episode of The Big 3 features special guest Rogan Quinn of Rhodium Group, author of Minerals, Metals and Megawatts: How China’s Power Generation Drives Its Industrial Metals Ecosystem. Quinn joins CPA economists Mihir Torsekar and Andrew Rechenberg to explain how China became what he calls an “electrostate” — an industrial power whose dominance in electricity generation, metals processing, and manufacturing mutually reinforce one another.  

The conversation breaks down how China’s cheap thermal power, hydroelectric capacity, state-backed credit, and local-government growth incentives helped build the world’s most powerful metals and electrification supply chain. Rather than simply controlling minerals in the ground, China dominates what happens after extraction: refining, smelting, separation, processing, and downstream manufacturing for batteries, EVs, solar panels, electronics, and other electric-current-driven industries.

Quinn also highlights the demand side of China’s system, especially batteries, where falling costs have opened new use cases across vehicles, storage, and heavy-duty trucking. But the system contains major vulnerabilities, including weak cash flows, overcapacity, global demand dependence, and exposure to recession.

The episode closes with lessons from Japan and South Korea, and Quinn’s central takeaway: any country hoping to compete with China’s industrial ecosystem must solve the problem of abundant, cheap power.

Read Rhodium Group's report here: https://rhg.com/research/minerals-metals-and-megawatts-how-chinas-power-generation-drives-its-industrial-metals-ecosystem/


CHAPTERS:

00:00 - Introduction
03:15 - China's Electrostate, Cheap Power, & the Metals Machine Behind EV Dominance
10:16 - Battery Demand, Industrial Scale, & the Engine Driving China's Supply Chains
19:06 - Rare Earth Leverage, Global Risks, & the Fight to Compete with China

This week’s episode of The Big 3 welcomes Beth Baltzan, former senior advisor to U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai during the Biden Administration and now deputy director of the Coalition for New Trade, for a wide-ranging discussion on how the global trading system broke — and what should replace it. Baltzan argues that the postwar system originally recognized the danger of unchecked capital mobility and sought to empower workers, but that framework unraveled as floating exchange rates, liberalized capital flows, and free-trade orthodoxy took hold.  

The conversation traces how the WTO-era model rewarded capital, weakened labor, and encouraged supply-chain concentration — most visibly through China’s manufacturing dominance and the COVID-era shortages that exposed U.S. vulnerability. Hosts Mihir Torsekar and Andrew Rechenberg highlight how import competition and offshoring suppressed wages, hollowed out industrial communities, and shifted economic gains away from workers.

Baltzan makes the case for a new trade framework built around resilience, labor rights, environmental standards, and corrective action — not reflexive free trade agreements. The episode closes with a discussion of the upcoming USMCA review, rapid-response labor enforcement, digital trade risks, and the need for a bipartisan industrial strategy that rebuilds domestic production while creating a fairer global trading system.


Learn more about the Coalition for New Trade: https://www.coalitionfornewtrade.org/

CHAPTERS:

00:00 - INTRODUCTION
03:24 - BRETTON WOODS, BROKEN PROMISES, & THE RISE OF CAPITAL-FIRST TRADE
19:35 - CHINA SHOCK, SUPPLY FRAGILITY, & THE WORKER COST OF FREE TRADE
44:42 - USMCA REVIEW, LABOR RIGHTS, & THE FIGHT FOR RESILIENT TRADE

This week’s episode of The Big 3 focused on CPA’s new report on the foreign control of America’s antibiotic supply chain and the collapse of the domestic production base that once supported it. CPA economists Mihir Torsekar and Andrew Rechenberg traced the story back to an East Syracuse, New York facility that once produced 70% of America’s penicillin supply, but now produces nothing, symbolizing how the U.S. lost control of a critical industry.

The discussion highlighted how China now supplies roughly 87% of the antibiotic active pharmaceutical ingredients imported by the United States, while India formulates much of those ingredients into the finished drugs Americans consume. The hosts stressed that this is not just a country-level dependence, but a highly concentrated firm-level chokepoint, with a handful of companies controlling much of the trade.

They also underscored that foreign producers are not merely cheaper — in some cases, they are cutting corners on safety, falsifying data, and exposing American patients to greater risk. Finally, the episode explored how policymakers can begin rebuilding antibiotic sovereignty through a mix of tariff-rate quotas, procurement reform, allied sourcing, and support for the remaining Western footholds in production, especially the Sandoz Kundl facility in Austria and the limited final-dose capacity still operating in the United States.

This week’s episode of The Big 3 used CPA senior economist Mihir Torsekar’s recent Ohio State debate on whether tariffs are “just” as a springboard to examine three core arguments in the trade debate: affordability, employment, and production.

First, Mihir and Andrew argued that the cost-of-living crisis is being misdiagnosed. While tariffs are often blamed for inflation, they noted that the biggest drivers of household strain are non-tradable essentials like shelter, healthcare, and energy, not tariff-affected manufactured goods.

They pointed to the recent Minneapolis Fed analysis and category-level inflation data to argue that tariffs cannot explain the broader rise in prices.

Second, the discussion turned to employment and inequality. The hosts argued that free trade did not lift all boats, but instead helped drive factory closures, job displacement, wage stagnation, and wider regional decline, while the biggest gains flowed to capital, top earners, and asset holders.

Finally, the team examined whether tariffs are actually driving reshoring. Here, the hosts pointed to rising durable goods orders, stronger manufacturing PMI readings, improved labor productivity, and gains in domestic market share and output in sectors like primary metals and motor vehicles.

Their larger point was that tariffs, done right and sustained over time, can help redirect the economy away from consumption and toward production.

This week’s episode of The Big 3 with CPA economists Mihir Torsekar and Andrew Rechenberg centered on three major trade investigations that go to the heart of CPA’s industrial policy agenda: global overcapacity, forced labor, and revoking China’s permanent normal trade relations status.

First, the crew examined the Section 301 overcapacity investigation, arguing that China remains the central driver of global industrial excess, but that countries such as Vietnam, India, Mexico, and Egypt also function as conduits or secondary sources of distortion. They pointed to enormous overcapacity in sectors like steel and solar, warning that subsidized production is flooding world markets and undercutting U.S. manufacturers.

Second, the hosts turned to forced labor, describing it as a hidden production subsidy that lowers labor costs, suppresses fair competition, and is deeply intertwined with the same supply chains driving overcapacity, particularly in Chinese polysilicon and solar production.

Finally, they discussed CPA’s comments to the U.S. International Trade Commission on revoking China’s permanent normal trade relations status. The team argued that China’s entry into the WTO devastated American manufacturing communities, and they highlighted CPA modeling showing that moving China to Column 2 tariff treatment could generate large GDP gains, create jobs, and begin correcting a decades-old policy mistake.

On this week’s episode of The Big 3, CPA economists Mihir Torsekar and Andrew Rechenberg focused on a new metals proclamation, a pharmaceutical proclamation, and the one-year anniversary of President Trump's Liberation Day tariffs. The team explain why the new metals action is so significant: steel, aluminum, and copper tariffs will now apply to the full customs value of imported products rather than just the declared value of their metal content, a change aimed at stopping chronic undervaluation and customs gaming. They also noted the new tiered structure and the need to keep exemptions narrow.

Second, the conversation turned to pharmaceuticals, where the administration made a positive national-security finding and imposed a 100% tariff on patented brand-name drugs and key inputs for companies without U.S. production plans, while creating lower tariff tiers for firms that invest onshore. The hosts welcomed the move but argued generics still need to be included, given their central role in U.S. healthcare.

Finally, they assessed Liberation Day one year on, arguing that the worst tariff predictions never materialized. Instead, they pointed to stronger durable goods orders, rising industrial production, sector-specific gains in metals and autos, and little evidence that tariffs are meaningfully driving inflation.

THIS WEEK'S EPISODE OF "THE BIG 3" focused on the national security risks of America’s dependence on China for critical minerals processing, especially in the lead-acid battery supply chain.

CPA senior economists Mihir Torsekar and Andrew Rechenberg were joined by retired Major General Bill Crane and retired Rear Admiral Peter Brown to discuss CPA’s new report with the Responsible Battery Coalition on how the United States can reverse China’s dominance in minerals processing.

The conversation first explored why lead-acid batteries remain indispensable to the American economy and military readiness, powering everything from trucks and hospitals to telecom systems and defense infrastructure.

The second segment examined the strategic vulnerability created by China’s control over antimony processing, ports, shipping, and industrial inputs, with guests warning that America has offshored not just production, but surge capacity in the event of conflict.

The final segment turned to policy solutions, including Project Vault, tariffs, domestic stockpiling, maritime capacity, and the importance of extending the 45X tax credit to encourage onshore processing and manufacturing.

The message was clear: Economic security and national security are inseparable, and rebuilding America’s industrial base is essential not only for today’s competitiveness, but for future generations.