I know that many Europeans root for Airbus like they would root for their own national soccer (or, sorry, “football”) team. Americans don’t really do that. That’s why, I argued in my column today, it came across as so audacious for General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt to say Americans should all cheer for GE vs Siemens, or other foreign companies.
Today, Immelt gave more of this economic nationalism talk, and more Germany and China envy. From a Reuters report, some highlights:
He held out Germany — home to one of GE’s biggest rivals, Siemens AG — as an example of a wealthy country that has been successful in pushing exports.
“Chancellor (Angela) Merkel flies from Berlin to Beijing, there’s 25 German CEOs that go on the plane right behind her. And they connect the dots. They play hard, they play to win,” Immelt said.
President Barack Obama, he added, “has been out driving and pushing to try to double exports in the next five years. I think we can compete very well. But we’re not all-in the same way that the Germans are all-in.”
Again, you hear definite echoes of Obama’s National Greatness Liberalism, U.S.A., Inc., talk in there. “We’re not trying hard enough” is like Obama’s charge that we’ve “gotten soft.”
“Play to win,” reflects Obama’s talk that we have to BEAT the Chinese at solar panels, and BEAT the Spanish at windmills, and BEAT the North Koreans at really tall hotels (okay, I made that last one up, but you get the point).
Obama’s much subtler with his national industrial policy thoughts than Immelt is. I wonder how well it will play among the electorate.
