Industrial policy is a third rail term in the US. It brings to mind images of Soviet-style planned economies, or government-designated corporate winners and losers, something that has traditionally evoked fear in American conservatives as well as many liberals.

That may be changing, as a group of industrial chief executives, such as Dow Chemical’s Andrew Liveris, IBM’s Ginni Rometty and General Electric’s Jeff Immelt, is encouraging the Trump administration to craft a modern policy by connecting the dots between educators, job creators, regulators, consumers and workers. Working with Wilbur Ross, commerce secretary, the chief executives are weighing in on everything from how to reshape education in order to train a 21st-century workforce, to which regulations should be overturned to unleash “animal spirits”.

The goal, says Mr Liveris, is profound: to move America’s economy from one based mainly on consumption and cheaper prices to something that looks a lot more German, with more vocational training programmes and higher skilled, higher paid workers churning out more upscale exports.