STRATEGIC

Leveraging U.S. Strengths, Dealing with Vulnerabilities 103
market, 99 accept disability insurance, some form of trade adjustment
assistance, or other antipoverty benefits as a substitute, and then “age
out” of the workforce only to subsist on Social Security and Medicare?
Could future administrations design programs to cushion those
who have not benefited from globalization in order to sustain free-trade
arrangements that have boosted the gross domestic product, however
unevenly those gains are distributed? Can this be done without massively
increasing the federal deficit or the debt-to-GDP ratio, which
also pose long-term challenges to U.S. competitiveness in the world?
Whatever the specific policies chosen, maintaining a climate to
attract and promote entrepreneurship and investment, and building
an economy that delivers on the promise of the American dream for a
larger share of the population must be part of an “opportunity agenda”
for any administration. Success at home begets strength abroad; it
strengthens any U.S. president’s power of persuasion. International
strategy will be most successful when it reflects the recognition that the
U.S. power to attract and inspire is greater than its power to compel.
99 Long-term unemployment is correlated with a lower likelihood of subsequent employment.
In 2014, about 35 percent of people who had been out of work for a year or more became unemployed
in the following month. Karen Kosanovich and Elini T. Sherman, Trends in Long-Term
Unemployment, Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 2015.