Marc Fasteau

As Vice Chairman of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, Marc Fasteau is one of the country’s most forceful advocates for strategic industrial policy. He argues that targeted tariffs, not laissez-faire dogma, are key to preserving high-wage industries and technological leadership in a world defined by mercantilist competition.

Fasteau began his career on the professional staffs of the US Senate Majority Leader, House Banking, and Joint Economic Committee, where he helped shape policy on finance, trade, and global affairs. He later became Managing Director and Partner at Dillon, Read & Co., before founding the American Strategic Insurance Group, a nationally rated property and casualty insurer later acquired by Progressive.

His investments reflect both global reach and material depth from high-performance biomedical 3D printing at Oxford Performance Materials to luxury hotel developments in St. Barts and Lake Como. But it is in the realm of trade and industrial strategy where Marc Fasteau’s voice has grown most distinct. Together with economist Ian Fletcher, he co-authored Industrial Policy for the United States, a bold, clear-eyed blueprint for restoring America’s productive base and confronting the illusion of free trade.

Drawing on history, international case studies, and hard economic data including a sobering 2024 UN report projecting the US share of global manufacturing will fall to just 11% by 2030; the book makes a powerful case for abandoning the failed orthodoxy of free trade. Instead, Fasteau and Fletcher argue for a pragmatic, democratically accountable industrial strategy that uses tariffs, targeted subsidies, and strategic sector support to re-anchor advanced manufacturing in the US. Without such a shift, they warn, America risks becoming dependent on foreign supply chains for everything from semiconductors to clean energy infrastructure. Endorsed by figures including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and praised by dissident economists like Jeff Ferry, the book is a landmark contribution to the new bipartisan consensus forming around economic security, industrial resilience, and the return of statecraft to economic policy.