CEOs get paid (very well) to deal with every challenge that pops up. Now there’s a new one: Proving they practice “economic patriotism.”

This new form of patriotism has become an issue now that several big U.S. companies have decided to relocate their headquarters to other countries, in order to lower their tax bill. These so-called “tax inversions” require a merger with a foreign company, a strategy big firms such as AbbVie (ABBV), Mylan (MYL), Walgreen (WAG), Medtronic ( MED), Chiquita Brands (CQB) and others have been pursuing. Since the U.S. corporate tax rate is one of the highest in the developed world, moving overseas can save a bundle of money.

Reforming and simplifying the U.S. tax code might solve the problem, except a fitful Congress obsessed with political spitball fights is unlikely to take that up anytime soon. In a July 15 letter to Congressional leaders pleading for some kind of action, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew proclaimed, “What we need as a nation is a new sense of economic patriotism, where we all rise or fall together.”

Some tax inverters are more susceptible to charges of sedition than others. Since Walgreen, Mylan and AbbVie are in the healthcare business, for instance, they earn considerable revenue from taxpayer-funded programs such as Medicaid and Medicare. So they’re seeking to slash their own obligations to Uncle Sam while benefiting directly from the payments of others — a contrast the New York Times described as “morally disconcerting.”

A political stunt?

While other patriotic calls have unified the nation, however, Lew’s plea for economic patriotism has provoked political opponents. In a rebuttal to Lew’s letter, the conservative editorial page of the Wall Street Journal characterized the letter as a political stunt while declaring that “Mr. Lew doesn’t know much about economics …. Mr. Lew's letter shows that the White House now wants to exploit the inversion flurry as an election year opportunity to demagogue business.”

Political infighting over the mercenary behavior of corporate America raises an intriguing new question: What is economic patriotism, anyway? Lew, in his “rise or fall” remark, seems to suggest U.S. companies ought to align themselves with the fortunes of the American middle class, and go down with the ship if that’s where the middle class is heading.

But Lew, who was a senior Citigroup executive from 2006 through 2009, surely knows that is not how public companies operate. The main job of a CEO is to optimize the return to shareholders, period. It’s nice when that primary mission coincides with feel-good national policies, but when it doesn’t, shareholders come first. And with nearly half of all revenue for America’s big firms coming from foreign sales, it’s imperative for those firms to remain competitive against rivals in other nations that face a lower tax burden and are eager to exploit any cost advantage they can.