Joe Biden will go into November’s US presidential election touting his lavish spending on the green transition — and his interventionist industrial policy more generally — as one of his great achievements. He also wants to export it to the rest of the world. Jake Sullivan, head of the White House National Security Council, said last year: “We will unapologetically pursue our industrial strategy at home, but we are unambiguously committed to not leaving our friends behind. We want them to join us. In fact, we need them to join us.”In reality, Sullivan might have to resign himself to the administration going it alone. When your economic interventionism involves fiscal largesse other big economies can only dream of affording and protects US industry with trade barriers other governments find unpalatable, it’s tricky to see how you can assemble a gang of like-minded countries.