Washington's power brokers gathered three days ago to confront an uncomfortable reality: America's economic future depends on winning races it hasn't yet secured. The July 14 Axios House D.C. event brought together congressional Democrats, federal regulators, and corporate executives to hash out whether the U.S. can outcompete rivals in artificial intelligence, energy, and advanced manufacturing—and what it'll take to get there.
The conversation revealed deep structural problems. Most of America's critical minerals come from China, Ford Motor Company executive chair Bill Ford told the room. The U.S. has those minerals buried in its own soil. What it lacks is the regulatory framework to extract and process them. That's not a market failure. That's a policy failure—one that's handed a strategic advantage to a geopolitical competitor.
"Having a planning horizon that we can count on makes a huge difference, because our lead times are longer than political lead times," Ford said. He was making a case for something that doesn't fit neatly into free-market orthodoxy: a bipartisan industrial policy. Long-term planning. Government coordination with private industry. The kind of state capacity that China has deployed ruthlessly and that the U.S. abandoned decades ago in favor of market-driven chaos.
The Energy and AI Stakes
NYSE Group president Lynn Martin framed AI's biggest economic opportunities as lying in energy and infrastructure—sectors positioned for "outsized returns for a longer period of time." But getting there requires investment and coordination that markets alone won't provide. Southern Company chair, president and CEO Chris Womack made the case bluntly: the U.S. needs to commit to building 10 new nuclear plants to meet growing energy demand.
That's not a suggestion from a utility executive hoping for deregulation. It's an admission that meeting America's future energy needs demands public commitment and long-term planning—the opposite of letting markets sort it out.
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) brought a different kind of urgency into the room. He worried aloud that the Iran war could become this generation's "forever war," and he criticized the Trump administration's diplomatic approach. "I don't think that you're going to be able to bomb yourself out of this," Meeks said, pointing to what he saw as inadequate diplomatic expertise. "Basically real estate negotiators" handling geopolitical crises. The implication was clear: markets and dealmaking don't substitute for institutional expertise and serious statecraft.
Regulation and Market Skepticism
Two moments crystallized the tension between market ideology and regulatory necessity. Commodity Futures Trading Commission chair Michael Selig announced that the CFTC will defend its authority over prediction markets "all the way up to the Supreme Court" if necessary. The battle to regulate prediction markets is intensifying—and the federal government isn't backing down.
Kalshi co-founder and CEO Tarek Mansour offered a revealing rationale for why prediction markets are gaining traction: "Many people feel traditional financial systems are 'rigged against them.'" He wasn't wrong. Millions of Americans have lost faith in institutions designed to serve them. They're turning to alternative markets because the existing ones feel corrupt or indifferent to their interests. That's not a sign of market health. That's a sign of institutional failure.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer signaled that Washington won't cede regulatory authority to Europe. "The U.S. won't let Europe become 'the arbiter' of regulating American tech companies," he said, as the world remains unsure how to regulate tech companies at all. The implication: whoever sets the rules wins the race. And the U.S. intends to set them.
The Deployment Gap
Accenture Federal Services CEO Ron Ash flagged a risk that cuts to the heart of industrial policy: "My biggest concern is that we win this race for developing the best AI technology and we lose the race to deploy it." The U.S. has excelled at innovation in labs and venture capital pitch decks. What it struggles with is scaling those innovations into productive use across the economy. That's a structural problem requiring coordination between government, industry, and research institutions—not something markets solve on their own.
The event also surfaced a more human dimension of economic failure. Zillow Group CEO Jeremy Wacksman cited a four-year-old Zillow study: half of Americans cry at some point during the homebuying process. The housing market has become so complicated, so rigged with information asymmetries and predatory incentives, that it's causing emotional distress to ordinary people trying to buy shelter. That's not a bug in the system. That's what happens when you let markets run without guardrails.
Why This Matters:
The conversation at Axios House D.C. reveals what policymakers across the political spectrum increasingly understand: the U.S. can't compete in the 21st-century economy by hoping markets will sort everything out. China is building supply chains, securing minerals, and deploying long-term industrial strategy. The U.S. is fragmented, dependent on foreign supply chains for critical materials, and hamstrung by regulatory uncertainty and short-term political cycles. The gap isn't just economic—it's institutional. America's success in AI, energy, and manufacturing will depend on whether government can coordinate with industry, set clear rules, and commit to long-term planning. The alternative is watching strategic advantage slip away to competitors willing to do what markets won't: plan ahead. For workers, communities, and the millions of Americans struggling with housing costs and economic instability, that difference is the difference between prosperity and decline.