European governments since WWII have adopted policies to penalize consumption and encourage savings to assist industry and recapitalize their economies.
But this really rewards exports and certainly isn't fair to US manufacturers, although from a European perspective a US manufacturer simply pays the same VAT when the item is imported into Europe.
The real problem in Europe and East Asia are the non-tariff barriers. For example, you would think Tesla could ship cars to Germany from Texas, but as soon as Tesla grabbed enough market share, it became difficult to do so. This encourages capital flight from the US because US companies must build or buy manufacturers in Europe to get equal treatment.
“penalize consumption and encourage savings to assist industry and recapitalize their economies.”
Except penalizing consumption hurts capitalization. It is the one thing socialists fail to understand. Profits capitalize, savings do not. It is the flow of money that makes for capitalization, not stagnate money.