Republicans once believed governments should get out of the way. Trump is making his influence felt in every corner of the American economy
When Ronald Reagan became the first US president to address China’s Great Hall of the People in 1984, he did not waste an opportunity to school his audience on the benefits of the American way.
He boiled down his central economic ideology, and that of his Republican party – that governments should get out of the way, allow companies, industries and markets the space the thrive, without intervention – into a simple mantra: trust the people.
“These three words are not only the heart and soul of American history, but the most powerful force for human progress in the world today,” Reagan argued in Beijing. “Those who ignore this vital truth will condemn their countries to fall farther and farther behind in the world’s competition for economic leadership.”
While Chairman Mao Zedong, founder of the People’s Republic of China, had been fundamentally opposed to free markets and capitalism, Reagan argued that societies which enjoyed “the most spectacular progress” were the ones where people had been “permitted to think for themselves, make economic decisions, and benefit from their own risks”.
