CLYDE PRESTOWITZ

CLYDE PRESTOWITZ

Clyde Prestowitz is what the New York Times has called “one of the most far seeing forecasters of global trends.” For more than fifty years he has studied, lived, and worked in Asia, Europe, and Latin America as well as in the United States and has become noted as a leading writer and strategist on globalization and competitiveness. His best-selling books include: Trading Places, Rogue Nation, Three Billion New Capitalists, The Betrayal of American Prosperity, and Japan Restored. In 2021, his book The World Turned Upside Down: America, China, and the Struggle for Global Leadership was published.

He was a leader of the first U.S. trade mission to China in 1982 and has served as an advisor to Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama. He has also worked closely with CEOs such as Intel’s Andy Grove, Chrysler’s Lee Iacocca, and Fred Smith of Fedex. In addition, he has served on the Advisory Boards of Indonesia’s Center for International Studies and of Israel’s Ministry of Industry and Labor.

As Counselor to the Secretary of Commerce in the Reagan administration, Mr. Prestowitz headed negotiations with Japan, South Korea, and China. Under the Clinton administration he served as Vice Chairman of the Presidential Commission on Trade and Investment in the Asia-Pacific Region. He was also on the Board of Advisors to the Export/Import Bank. 

Prior to these posts, he was Director of Marketing for Scott Paper Company Europe in Brussels, Vice President of Egon Zehnder International in Tokyo, and Head of Global Marketing for the American Can Company.

He holds a B.A. with honors from Swarthmore College; an M.A. in Asia Studies from the University of Hawaii and Tokyo’s Keio University, and an M.B.A. from the Wharton Graduate School of Business. He speaks Japanese, Dutch, German, and French.

Speech topics

The Betrayal of American Prosperity: Free Market Delusions, America's Decline, and How We Must Compete in the Post-Dollar Era

The reason America is losing its grip on its #1 status is the embrace by its “best and brightest” of six false doctrines:

1. Buy, buy, buy: Consumerism has overwhelmed investment as the main driver of U.S. economic growth

2. Market fundamentalism: Our blind faith in free markets has been proven wrong.

3. Non-reciprocal, laissez-faire free trade.

4. Sovereign companies and Shareholder Value: CEOs have become responsible to their shareholders over their communities.

5. Energy: Cheap is Expensive: Our dogged insistence on the right of Americans to cheap energy has led us into a dangerous addiction that increases our trade deficit and international debt

6. The Geopolitical Priority: Since World War II, we have subordinated our economic interests to geo-political ones.

Globalization is Dead – Long Live Globalization

In a rapid series of quakes and tremors, the economic crisis that has been gathering over the last year has destroyed the cherished economic myths and guiding policy assumptions of the past fifty years.

“De-coupling” is dead with a stake through its heart. The conviction that markets always optimize allocation of resources and are self-adjusting has proven disastrously false. Indeed, with most of the financial sector already in government hands and the Big Three begging for Washington’s backing, the issue is not whether America SHOULD have an industrial policy. It is what KIND of industrial policy or policies it ought to have.

The causes will and should be long debated. But the more pressing problem right now is what to do. At the moment all the world’s governments are throwing money in as many directions as possible. For the U.S. this is inevitable and the right thing to do in the immediate term. However, it carries the seeds of further destruction and devastation if it is not tempered in the very near future.

A great inflation and possibly stag-flation is in our future unless we adopt very new strategies. The only sustainable and long term viable path out of the darkness is to revitalize the U.S. productive base so that we produce at home more of what we consume and that we become an economy whose growth is much more driven by exports. In essence, America and China need to exchange strategies.

Books

The World Turned Upside Down: America, China, and the Struggle for Global Leadership

An authority on Asia and globalization identifies the challenges China’s growing power poses and how it must be confronted

OUT NOW

"Timely and thought-provoking, . . .refreshing. . . . Prestowitz provides an unsparing analysis of how Washington's elite fell into the grip of their China delusion." —James Kynge, Financial Times

In this book, notably free of partisan posturing and inflammatory rhetoric, renowned globalization and Asia expert Clyde Prestowitz describes the key challenges posed by China and the strategies America and the Free World must adopt to meet them. He argues that these must be more sophisticated and more comprehensive than a narrowly targeted trade war. Rather, he urges strategies that the United States and its allies can use unilaterally without contravening international or domestic law.

Japan Restored: How Japan Can Reinvent Itself and Why This Is Important for America and the World 

Looking at education, innovation, the role of women, corporate organization, energy, infrastructure, domestic government, and international alliances Prestowitz draws up a fascinating and controversial blueprint for the future success of Japan.

The Betrayal of American Prosperity: Free Market Delusions, America's Decline, and How We Must Compete in the Post-Dollar Era 

The Betrayal of American Prosperity is vital reading for all Americans concerned about the future of the economy and of our power in the coming era. 

Three Billion New Capitalists: The Great Shift of Wealth and Power to the East 

Three Billion New Capitalists is a clear-eyed and profoundly unsettling look at America's and the world's economic future.

Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism And The Failure Of Good Intentions 

Prestowitz explores the historical roots of the unilateral impulse and shows how it now influences every important area of American foreign policy.

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