Noah Rothman, John Puri, and Andrew Stuttaford have already raked the Trump administration over the coals for its senseless, self-defeating decision to allow Nvidia and AMD to sell advanced chips to Chinese companies, as long as 15 percent of the money from those sales goes to the federal government.

I’d just add that this comes after the U.S. government claimed for itself a “golden share” in the stock and management decisions of U.S. Steel, and the U.S. Department of Defense is using $400 million in taxpayer money to purchase a 15 percent stake in MP Materials and became the company’s largest shareholder. The New York Times argues, with considerable justification, that since taking office, Trump has decided that he runs the American semiconductor industry.

In just eight months, Mr. Trump has made himself the biggest decision maker for one of the world’s most economically and strategically important industries, which makes key components for everything from giant A.I. systems to military weapons. And he has turned the careful planning of companies historically led by engineers into a game of insider politics.

John accurately labels this worsening habit “state-directed capitalism,” and it comes from an administration that is going to spend the rest of its time in office denouncing the socialism of Bernie Sanders and the communism of Zohran Mamdani. (President Trump has already echoed Sanders in his belief that American consumers have too many choices and don’t need to buy as many dolls and other toys.) This administration and the current crop of Republicans are the most statist defenders of the free market ever.

I remember Salon once absurdly contending that Americans live in “the Koch brothers’ libertarian utopia.” A libertarian utopia! We can’t even get a Republican president to stop telling corporate boards what to do.