A recently introduced bill in the U.S. Senate would force many goods manufactured inside the United States to be sold in the country.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced the Make in America to Sell in America Act to try to respond to the supply chain crisis gripping the nation.
“It’s past time for the U.S. to end its crippling dependency on foreign manufacturing in countries like China and ensure that we actually produce the goods we need here at home,” Hawley said in a statement.
The legislation (pdf) says that “excessive globalization has been a disaster for United States workers in the manufacturing sector” and that “the erosion of the domestic industrial base of the United States is the result of the lack of adequate protection for both domestic industry and United States workers from import competition.”
Approximately 60,000 factories in the country have been shuttered since 2001, it says, with many of the goods produced by the factories now produced in China.
The bill would require the secretaries of defense and commerce to formulate a report that identifies goods for which domestic production is critical to the protection of the U.S. industrial base or the country’s national security.
The report would be required on an annual basis.
Any goods identified by the secretaries would need a domestic value content of more than 50 percent to be sold in the United States.
Hawley blamed President Joe Biden for the supply chain issues, which he said are getting worse every day.
The Biden administration has worked recently to alleviate the crisis by getting some ports in California to run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Factors leading to the issues include people buying more things online and most Americans being in better financial shape than last year, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday at the White House.
“We are continuing to press on ways to address issues in the supply chain,” she said. Officials said Biden would work with world partners at upcoming summits on the problems, including getting countries aligned around basics like transparency.
“How do we know at every level where there may be bottlenecks or breaks in the supply chain, so that we can quickly respond to them?” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.
