乐鱼体育

The COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, trade disputes, and increased great-power competition highlight risks specific to the supply chains of products crucial to national security, environmental sustainability, and economic prosperity. Rather than jumping from one crisis to the next, the United States must work with its international partners to mitigate critical supply chain vulnerabilities through cohesive, sustained action. 

乐鱼 体育 President & CEO, Ambassador Mark Green was joined by Mike Gallagher (WI-08), a leader of the House Armed Services Committee鈥檚 Defense Supply Chains Task Force. This conversation also featured 乐鱼 体育 experts providing regional insights on pathways for international collaboration on building resilient, global supply chains.

Event Snapshots

• The line between military alliances and trading partnerships is disappearing as the pandemic persists.
• The Chinese Communist Party has weaponized key supply chains from rare earth elements to those integral to companies acknowledging genocide in Xianjing today.
• There are diverse solutions for supply chains of critical materials and advanced technologies.

Selected Quotes

Ambassador Mark Green

鈥淣o longer does it make sense to focus solely on the bottom line and to manufacture goods overseas just because it鈥檚 cheaper. People can鈥檛 buy what can鈥檛 be delivered. Policymakers care about the health and interests of private enterprise to be sure. But of course, COVID pressures on supply chains are also affecting the flow of strategic priority goods as well.鈥�

鈥淚 applaud the Biden administration鈥檚 steps in the area of vaccine diplomacy. The development of life-saving vaccines in record time was a great American success story and President Trump is rightly proud of the accomplishment. Sharing in this success, in helping countries shore up their health care systems, will remind the world that our strength isn鈥檛 merely derived from hard power, but also from the genius of private enterprise and market economies.鈥�

鈥淭he line between military alliances and trading partnerships is disappearing as the pandemic persists. The U.S. needs trading partners committed to our collective security as well, not just commercial opportunity.鈥�

Christopher Sands

鈥淚t鈥檚 not always remarked on but we approached our Free Trade Agreements in North America using a role-of-origin based system and that put an emphasis on understanding the provenance of each piece of the supply chain. Now, the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement started that, the rules-of-origin modified for NAFTA, it was retained in USMCA鈥攖his gives us already a forward-thinking posture when it comes to the content of what we produce.鈥�

"At a time when supply chains connected to China are often quite opaque, North America is a leader in creating some of this visibility which I think is very important. It鈥檚 also necessary because as we decouple from the Chinese economy, as we start being more careful to look for sources of supply that aren鈥檛 tainted or are inconsistent with our values, agility and resilience is really important."

鈥淚n the USMCA, negotiators did something very important which is they said that publicly collected data鈥攚ith respect for privacy of course鈥攕hould be made available to the private sector and I think as governments we鈥檝e never really mined the data that we have鈥攖here鈥檚 a real potential to let the private sector begin mapping supply chains using data that鈥檚 collected by DHS, by customs鈥he data exists鈥� 

Rep. Mike Gallagher

鈥淥ne area where there may be some bipartisan cooperation, or where I think you would see Republican congressional support for something the Biden administration is pushing is in funding the Chips Act, which has already authorized an investment鈥攁 domestic investment鈥攊n semiconductor research and development and reportedly could be part of a package that Senator Schumer is working through the Senate.鈥� 

鈥淐hairman Xi not only views this as a legacy issue, but the ability to hold the whole world hostage by having effective control of TSMC is a very alluring prospect amid public testimony by Admiral Davidson our top ranking official [鈥 that a move on Taiwan could come within the next six years which to my knowledge is the first time something like that has been said publicly, which is alarming.鈥� 

鈥淧ower and money tends to be concentrated in about five companies, the five defense primes and it should not surprise anyone that it鈥檚 hard to get commercial, off-the-shelf technology adopted very quickly but that鈥檚 a reflection of the second problem DOD has where we tend to sprinkle new money out for innovative projects very thinly along a bunch of different investments when DOD probably needs to start making bigger investments on a smaller number of up-and-coming companies that hopefully one day will emerge as defense primes that can compete with legacy industries.鈥� 

Shihoko Goto

鈥淲e talk a great deal about data being the new oil, but it鈥檚 actually in many respects semiconductors that really are keeping the world running and the reality is that we鈥檒l need far more powerful and sophisticated semi-conductors and it鈥檚 actually at a very precarious stage where the demand is surging and yet the supply is really not really keeping up and is also skewed geographically as well.鈥� 

鈥淭he United States remains the world leader鈥攆or now鈥攊n designing chips but when it comes to actual production, East Asia dominates in fabs and there are three places in particular that are at the forefront and they are Taiwan, the Republic of Korea, and China. And there are high risks in depending so heavily on East Asian manufacturers even if they鈥檙e close U.S. allies.鈥�

鈥淭he United States is certainly not alone in meeting this challenge, other governments are also finding similar difficulties in securing semiconductors. Earlier this year we saw that the European Union announced that it aims to produce up to 20% of chips within the EU by 2030 and cynics鈥攅specially in the United States鈥攁rgue that鈥檚 much easier said than done [鈥 what is clear is that Europe too is hedging both against depending too heavily on chips made in Asia and also against chips that are solely designed in the United States.鈥�