Tax incentives and open-ended investment subsidies to attract firms to lagging regions are not that effective. Instead, Biden should invest in sectoral training programmes, which equip workers with skills tailored to specific industry needs.

Their candidate won a record number of votes, but Democrats face criticism for not doing better and for policies seen as both too liberal and too conservative. Concerns over social issues and losing good jobs to technology and globalisation could haunt them.

Despite a swell of private-sector support for corporate social responsibility, the effectiveness of relying on companies’ enlightened self-interest is unclear. Firms can be a reliable partner for the social good only when they speak with the voices of those whose lives they shape.

Huawei’s difficulties are a harbinger of a world in which national security, privacy and economics will interact in complicated ways. Countries must agree on a new regulatory patchwork which allows them to pursue their own interests without exporting their problems.

The innovation agenda has been captured by narrow groups of investors and firms whose values and interests don’t necessarily reflect society’s needs. The public sector provides the infrastructure that sustains private R&D and can help ensure innovation mirrors social priorities

We should not allow economics to become hostage to geopolitics or, worse, to reinforce and magnify US-China rivalry. The objective for the West should be to build more productive, more inclusive economies at home – not simply to outcompete China.

The talk everywhere is about decoupling and bringing supply chains home, but the retreat from hyper-globalisation need not mean trade wars. It is possible to envisage a more sensible, less intrusive model of economic globalisation.

Stalked by Covid-19, countries and politicians have in effect become exaggerated versions of themselves. This suggests that the crisis may turn out to be less of a watershed in global politics and economics than many have argued.

Trade policy in the US and advanced economies has been driven by globalisation and corporate interests, and left behind communities. With Warren, the US may be able to reimagine trade policy in the interests of society.

China and the US, like all other countries, should be able to maintain their own economic model. But international trade rules should prohibit national governments from adopting ‘beggar-thy-neighbour’ policies.

Since the 1980s, inequality has increased within rich countries even as poor countries get richer quicker. This reversal of a historical trend might have contributed to the rise of nationalism in the West – and harmful trade policies.

Those who embrace populism are responding negatively to cultural change, but also the insecurities of globalisation. But while the causes are complex, the solution is more straightforward: address economic anxiety and inequality.

Global bodies should govern problems that concern the whole world or policies that produce economic benefits at home only by harming other nations. If the trade tariffs are either in the national interest as Trump claims or cause the US harm as critics observe, they are legitimate domestic decisions.

The idea that countries must fully open their economies to foreign companies, regardless of the consequences for their own growth strategies or societies, is flawed. The US and China should give each other greater policy space.

Europe and China should be telling Donald Trump that they refuse to be drawn into a trade war and will stick with policies that work for their economies.

The Italian president’s veto of a minister’s appointment, which was criticised for undermining his country’s democracy, raises issues that must be addressed when policymakers delegate decision-making to unelected bodies.