American Affairs Journal

Texas and California have taken sharply different approaches to surface transportation. Texas has spent decades expanding roadway capacity, building new infrastructure, and moving projects from planning to construction.1 California has pursued a broader set of objectives, including environmental protection, greenhouse gas reduction, land-use planning, transit development, equ...

Since joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, China has, barely without foreign notice, executed one of the most consequential economic strategies in modern history. When it entered the WTO, roughly 33 percent of Chinese exports were intermediate goods, or the components, chemicals, and parts that go into making final products. By 2025, that figure had risen to 46...

A wiser national pattern would encourage states to default toward local control with guardrails, such as those outlined above, rather than broad preemption that severs decision-makers from consequences. Where states do retain override mechanisms, they should include strong prime farmland overlays, transparency mandates, and full accounting of long-term costs to neighboring pr...

America has its Promethean vision, which has undoubtedly served as a source of great wealth and vitality. Through technological deployment, however, it risks suffering the same fate as Icarus: burning its wings by seeking growth without meaning. Going higher and faster without knowing where you are going quickly becomes a nihilistic dead end that can lead to your own downfall...

In October of 2026, Albertans will head to the polls for another referendum on a bundle of proposals that angle toward greater Albertan control over education, health care, the courts, and more power and leverage against the federal government. Five of ten questions relate to immigration restrictions, namely limiting access to public services and voting for noncitizens. But t...