Donald Trump Donald John TrumpBiden on Trump's refusal to commit to peaceful transfer of power: 'What country are we in?' Romney: 'Unthinkable and unacceptable' to not commit to peaceful transition of power Two Louisville police officers shot amid Breonna Taylor grand jury protests MORE’s intervention to save jobs at Carrier Corporation in Indiana "was picking winners and losers," according to the self-described "free market capitalist" hand-wringers who purport to speak for Republicans and conservatives.

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But those doyens of capitalism seem to ignore that America's central government has been “picking winners and losers,” both directly and obliquely, since the earliest days of the republic.

Two Centuries of “Picking Winners”

Donald Trump could have been quoting Alexander Hamilton's 1791 "Report on the Subject of Manufactures” when he condemned currency manipulations that our competitors use to subsidize their exports:

“It is well known … that certain nations grant (subsidies for exports) to enable their own workmen to undersell and supplant all competitors, in the countries to which those (exports) are sent. … To (compete), it is evident, that the (protection) and aid of (America’s) own government are indispensable.

While Congress tabled Hamilton's report, it adopted his proposal for tariffs within six months. And while Congress rejected Hamilton’s proposal for direct manufacturing subsidies, it began to subsidize manufacturers directly and obliquely early in the next century:

In 1806, Thomas Jefferson authorized creation of the Cumberland Road to open up the westward expansion of the Louisiana Purchase. It set the precedent for federal roadway expansion that lasts to this day.

The Tariff Act of 1816 worked mostly to protect domestic textile manufacturers which were threatened by British Imports. By the 1830s, cloth manufacturing became the leading industry in the U.S. and the resulting mechanical expertise produced a virtuous cycle of industrialization in everything from U.S. shoe manufacturing to mass-produced hand tools, hats and barrel making.

In 1842 and 1843, Congress allocated $40,000 for an experimental telegraph line from Washington to Baltimore. The telegraphy system that resulted was central to 19th and early 20th Century communications.

From 1850 to the early 1920’s, Congress gave over 129 million acres of land to the railroads to aid western expansion.

In the 20th Century, government-initiated innovations for military and scientific purposes created entirely new civilian products:

Cellucotton, developed as an alternative to expensive, less-absorbent cotton bandages for World War I, became the first disposable sanitary napkin, (Kotex); then, Kleenex facial tissues.

The wristwatch became a widely owned consumer item after soldiers used them in World War I.

Jet aircraft, developed by the Germans in 1939, were adopted by the victors of World War II.

The Jeep’s military use led to widespread civilian acceptance of 4- wheel drive vehicles.

Most foods in your children’s lunchbox — from Goldfish® snack crackers to packaged meat — is a result of military food research.

Government-sponsored innovations in the latter half of the 20th Century have had an immeasurable impact on the US economy and created industries where millions are employed today:

The US commercial aviation industry that, today, leads our exports of high value-added manufactured goods, was made possible only because the airframe of the Boeing 707 was based on the Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker, developed for US Air Force mid-air refueling in the 1950s. Sixty years later, the military’s new KC-46 "Pegasus" tanker is built on virtually the same airframe as the Boeing 767-200.

Lawrence Page’s patent, “Method for scoring documents in a linked database”, which many believe was the basis for Google, was developed at Stanford with Grant #IRI-9411306-4 from the National Science Foundation

The internet itself was derived from a program of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

There was oblique government support for innovation when the government ignored monopolies:

Bell Labs — the research arm of Bell Telephone — developed the cellular phone, lasers, and transistor because the Bell System monopoly protected the labs from the vagaries of earnings benchmarks imposed on more competitive enterprises.

IBM, another monopoly of the 1970’s, unknowingly positioned a little-known Microsoft to become a global powerhouse by obtaining a non-exclusive license of Microsoft’s MS-DOS operating system for the IBM-PC. When the hardware was cloned, Microsoft became the predominant global PC company.

Robust National Industrial Policies are the Global Norm

The notion that the “free market” itself will create the “garage-tech innovation” that America once saw from the founders of Ford Motors or Hewlett Packard, is a fantasy proffered only by the most radical “Ayn Rand” ideologues. It has been a costly, and stupid, mistake for the real-world American economy and American workers for the last 25 years.

Our largest trading partners have been engaged in industrial policy for decades. Germany funds a vast array of both basic and applied research through independently administered panels of Germany's leading scientists. It now has the highest trade surplus to GDP ratio of the G-7.

Japan's Keiretsu, or aligned companies, were instrumental in protecting enterprises from the vagaries of the market for much of the post-war era. Since the 1980's, Japan's Science and Technology Agency has been heavily involved in administering applied research.

Most US research funding, on the other hand, goes to basic research. The National Science Foundation operates with a budget of less than $8 billion per year, about 0.5 percent of US GDP.

Overall, the US spends just 2.75 percent of GDP on R&D, while Germany spends nearly 3 percent, Japan spends nearly 4 percent, and both South Korea and Israel, the “Start-Up Nation,” both spend over 4 percent of their GDP on research and development.

Restoring Traditionally Republican Trade Policy for the First Time in Nearly 30 Years

Republican opinion makers and their corporate benefactors have been pushing propaganda that unrestricted free trade is a traditional GOP notion for 25 years. But, in reality, the party has been protectionist for most of its history.

The GOP Platform of 1860 supported a trans-continental railroad and a strategic tariff “to encourage the development of the industrial interests of the whole country, and ...secure to the workingmen liberal wages, to agriculture remunerating prices, to mechanics and manufacturers an adequate reward for their skill, labor and enterprise, and to the nation commercial prosperity and independence.”

The overwhelming majority of Republicans in Congress opposed the principal New Deal “free trade” policy of FDR, the Reciprocal Tariff Act of 1934.

Republican platforms of the 1950’s firmly opposed trade deals with any communist nations. Today, Republicans in Congress and the White House have granted communist countries like China and Vietnam “most favored nations” (now “normal”) trade status.

Dwight Eisenhower, the very first Republican president to support free trade, saw trade mostly as off-balance-sheet foreign aid to prevent communist expansion in Europe, Asia and Latin America. He wrote in his diary in July of 1953, that trade would “allow backward people to make a decent living”; otherwise, “in the long run, we must fall prey to the Communist attack”. The GOP Platforms of 1952 and 1956 agreed to free trade only reservedly.

GOP presidents as recently as Ronald Reagan backed protective tariffs and quotas on everything from steel, autos, and motorcycles to sugar, textiles and clothespins.

Continuing the Founders’ — and the Republican — Tradition

Donald Trump emerged from 2016 as the dissenting voice from a failed bipartisan trade policy that was espoused by progressive Democrats and, for the last quarter century, by establishment Republicans. Instead, he embraces the “free but fair” trade policy of Ronald Reagan.

Thoughtfully and strategically deployed, the president elect’s traditional Republican trade and industrial policy can innovate to create new industries that boost America’s high value-added employment, economic health and national well-being; then, protect those industries from being usurped by foreign competitors.

J.G. Collins is the Managing Director of the Stuyvesant Square Consultancy in New York. A “Never Trumper” during the 2016 election, he is a long-time critic of the bipartisan U.S. policy of unlimited free trade. He has previously written on U.S. trade policy for Forbes, The Daily Caller, and The American Conservative.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.