Bipartisan effort launched to onshore manufacturing of key supplies never before 'Made in USA'
EXCLUSIVE: Senators from both sides of the aisle will put forward a resolution calling on Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to seek out new sites and critical infrastructure for high-demand products that are currently not made in America, and analyze the viability of making such products here.
Senate Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee chairwoman Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., came together Friday to launch the effort – citing the dual need for onshoring supply chains while bolstering the U.S. workforce.
The Critical Infrastructure Manufacturing Feasibility Act would force Lutnick to report within 18 months on critical infrastructure sectors where products face material, sourcing, or supply-chain constraints that prevent them from being domestically produced.
The Commerce Department would then have to analyze the feasibility of producing that product in the U.S. – and whether such products' newly-onshore production can be established in underserved rural areas and industrial parks.
Lawmakers Take Action After Report Shows Biden-era Sba Failed To Probe 2 Million To Alleged Covid Aid Fraudsters
Both Ernst's and Blunt Rochester's states are vastly rural. In the latter, suburban sprawl from Wilmington gives way to miles of coastal plain.
Read On The Fox News App
In recent years, the cities of Newark and Middletown have seen a boom in industrial parks and warehouses for major companies like Amazon seeking out the First State's famously low-tax and tax-free environs.
"Supply chains are key to global competitiveness and our national security," Blunt Rochester told Fox News Digital.
"This bipartisan legislation will help us identify where we rely too heavily on foreign imports for critical infrastructure and explore how we can bring that manufacturing home."
House Small Business Committee Releases Report On Biden-era Electioneering
The Delawarean added that strengthening domestic production not only protects our supply chains, "it supports American jobs, revitalizes local economies, and reinforces our nation's resilience if global manufacturing disruptions occur."
Ernst added that the bill seeks to make the U.S. less dependent on foreign adversaries for critical infrastructure and key manufacturing supply chain preservation.
"I am working to make 'Made in America' the norm instead of the exception," she said.
"That starts with ensuring that our manufacturers are able to get the materials they need right here instead of having to import supplies from halfway around the world. Beyond boosting domestic industry, this bill is also about safeguarding our national security by ensuring that we are not dependent on any foreign adversary for critical goods that we need."
Ernst has also spearheaded efforts to onshore the pharmaceutical supply chain from China. Many key ingredients in medicines are not produced in the U.S., and instead predominantly in Ireland and China.
While one is a longtime U.S. ally, the other's involvement in the supply chain could lead to national security risks, critics have said.Original article source: Bipartisan effort launched to onshore manufacturing of key supplies never before 'Made in USA'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
The biggest losers in the bombing of Iran? The Iranian people.
Under the grip of this regime for the past 46 years, mismanagement and corruption have deepened societal cleavages. Iran's Advertisement One of the paradoxes of governments that rely on coercion is that they are often frightened of their own people. In Iran, that fear has been amplified in the aftermath of the regime's evident vulnerability and incompetence in the face of its foremost adversaries' bombardment. The conflict has decimated the top echelons of the security services, killing as many as 14 generals. Israel has also attacked paramilitary and intelligence installations critical to the coercive apparatus of the state. Advertisement But today, they are too traumatized to revolt. And the Islamic Republic's multilayered elite structure has already generated replacements for the cadres eliminated in the Israeli strikes. The strikes have intensified the apprehensions of Iran's leaders toward their disillusioned citizenry. Just as in the aftermath of previous security crises, such a series of 1981 terrorist attacks against the regime or the 1988 cease-fire with Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, Tehran is responding to external threats with an internal crackdown. The regime is already engaging in mass arrests and show trials are sure to follow. The masses and public figures are enjoined to support the regime. In the name of rooting out the internal collaborators who enabled Israel's devastating initial attacks, scores will be settled and revenge taken. Iran's repressive political atmosphere will become even more stifling. An insecure regime looking to reestablish its deterrent posture is unlikely to relent anytime soon. For the past two decades, the United States has imposed crippling sanctions on Iran primarily in the name of arms control. The sanctions have debilitated Iran's economy, precipitating inflation, currency crisis, and unemployment. Throughout the tortuous path of talks with Iran, Washington and its international partners sought to utilize the sanctions as a tool to persuade Iran to concede core aspects of its nuclear program. In practice, the proposition of sanctions relief has always proven less compelling in advancing diplomatic solutions, especially for a target with as much experience with this tool as Tehran. Its leaders are all too aware that the US measures that severed Iran's ties to the international financial system have a peculiar afterlife, as jittery banks and businesses tend to steer clear long after their expiration. Advertisement Now, the relative success of the strikes on Iran have upended the central logic of international diplomacy around the Iranian nuclear challenge. The world now has another path to disarming Tehran — Israeli and American military action. The strategy of restraining Iran's nuclear advances by offering economic incentives in exchange for compliance with its arms control obligations will now be eclipsed by a more potent tool — additional attacks. A regime humiliated and antagonized by bombardment is likely to double down on reestablishing deterrence through its familiar tools of terror and covert nuclear investments. Meanwhile, the cost of sanctions will continue to be borne by ordinary Iranians. Iran's economy will continue to be hollowed out, the aspirations of another generation crushed, and a once proud and prosperous nation sinking further into impoverishment and isolation. Today, the Iranian people are caught between cruel rulers and an indifferent international community. The Islamic Republic endures and will continue to wage its struggle against the West. Anti-Americanism is core to the regime's identity. As Iranian leaders seek to reconstitute the nuclear program covertly, it's likely that new coercive measures will be deployed against Iran as Western spymasters will likely catch the regime red-handed. Military force is now the instrument of arms control. Advertisement In the midst of all this stand the Iranian people, abused and alone. Peace and security in the Middle East will not be possible until they have a meaningful say in their nation's destiny.
San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Scott Wiener files paperwork to run for Congress in 2028. Could he challenge Pelosi?
State Sen. Scott Wiener has made no secret of his plans to run for Congress, but his decision to file paperwork Friday to run in 2028 means there is a chance he could challenge Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who has held the seat for nearly four decades. Wiener, D-San Francisco, has previously said he would seek the seat whenever Pelosi decided to step down. He will be termed out of the California Legislature in 2028, where he has been a strong advocate for policies to spur housing construction and fund transit systems. Like Pelosi, Wiener has been a fierce critic of President Donald Trump. Wiener said in a statement to the Chronicle that he expects the seat to be open in 2026 or 2028. 'I've been clear that I intend to run for this seat whenever the race opens up, whether in 2026 or 2028. This filing is a critical step to prepare for the serious work of running to succeed one of the icons of American politics,' the statement reads. A spokesperson for Pelosi told the Chronicle in April that 'no announcement has been made either way' regarding whether she plans to for reelection in 2026. The spokesperson declined to comment to the Chronicle on Friday. Wiener's move comes during a week in which calls to replace aging Democratic stalwarts with new voices have hit a fever pitch. On Tuesday, 33-year-old Zohran Mamdani shocked the Democratic Party with his mayoral primary victory over political scion and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. That same day, California Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Long Beach, became the ranking member on the powerful House Oversight Committee — a position long reserved only for the most senior party members. Garcia is 47 and serving his second term in Congress. Wiener has long been running a sort-of shadow campaign for Congress. In 2023, he secured the support of several powerful Bay Area female leaders, including state Sen. Catherine Stefani (then a San Francisco supervisor); former San Francisco District Attorney Suzy Loftus; Debbie Mesloh, former chair of San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women; and Andrea Dew Steele, the co-founder of Emerge America, which trains Democratic women to run for office. Their support could be crucial to Wiener if he ultimately runs against Pelosi's daughter Christine Pelosi, who's been long thought to be a contender for the seat when her mother retires. Nancy Pelosi has already drawn a Democratic challenger in 2026, if she decides to run for reelection: Saikat Chakrabarti, 39, a founding software engineer at the tech firm Stripe and former chief of staff to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. 'The next (Mamdani) could be (Chakrabarti) running against Nancy Pelosi,' wrote Cenk Uygur, CEO of 'The Young Turks,' a progressive online news show, on Wednesday. 'If he beats Pelosi, the old guard of the party will be devastated. Time for a new Democratic Party.' Pelosi, 85, was first elected to the House in 1987 and quickly rose through the ranks, becoming the first woman to lead either party in 2003. She became the nation's first female speaker in 2007 and ascended to the top job again in 2019 after her party recaptured the House. She is widely seen as the architect of landmark legislation, including the Affordable Care Act during the Obama administration, and is a prolific fundraiser, harvesting $1.25 billion for Democrats since she ascended into party leadership, according to party officials. The speaker emerita — who took on the honorific after stepping down from leadership in November 2022 — has continued to represent San Francisco in the House, and won her 20th term in Congress in November 2024. If elected, Wiener would be the first openly gay member of Congress to represent San Francisco.
2 hours ago
US, China announce a trade agreement — again. Here's what it means
WASHINGTON -- The United States and China have reached an agreement — again — to deescalate trade tensions. But details are scarce, and the latest pact leaves major issues between the world's two biggest economies unresolved. President Donald Trump said late Thursday that a deal with China had been signed "the other day.'' China's Commerce Ministry confirmed Friday that some type of arrangement had been reached but offered few details about it. Sudden shifts and a lack of clarity have been hallmarks of Trump's trade policy since he returned to the White House determined to overturn a global trading system that he says is unfair to the United States and its workers. He's been engaged for months in a battle with China that has mostly revealed how much pain the two countries can inflict on each other. And he's racing against a July 8 deadline to reach deals with other major U.S. trading partners. The uncertainty over his dealmaking and the cost of the tariffs, which are paid by U.S. importers and usually passed on to consumers, have raised worries about the outlook for the U.S. economy. And although analysts welcomed the apparent easing of tensions with China, they also warned that the issues dividing Washington and Beijing are unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Friday that the Chinese had agreed to make it easier for American firms to acquire Chinese magnets and rare earth minerals critical for manufacturing and microchip production. Beijing had slowed exports of the materials amid a bitter trade dispute with the Trump administration. Without explicitly mentioning U.S. access to rare earths, the Chinese Commerce Ministry said that 'China will, in accordance with the law, review and approve eligible export applications for controlled items. In turn, the United States will lift a series of restrictive measures it had imposed on China.'' The Chinese have complained about U.S. controls on exports of advanced U.S. technology to China. But the ministry statement did not specifically say whether the United States planned to ease or lift those controls. In his interview on Fox Business Network's 'Mornings with Maria,' Bessent mentioned that the United States had earlier imposed 'countermeasures'' against China and 'had held back some vital supplies for them.'' "What we're seeing here is a de-escalation under President Trump's leadership,'' Bessent said, without spelling out what concessions the United States had made or whether they involved America's export controls. Jeff Moon, a trade official in the Obama administration who now runs the China Moon Strategies consultancy, wondered why Trump hadn't disclosed details of the agreement two days after it had been reached. 'Silence regarding the terms suggests that there is less substance to the deal than the Trump Administration implies,″ said Moon, who also served as a diplomat in China. The agreement that emerged Thursday and Friday builds on a "framework'' that Trump announced June 11 after two days of high-level U.S.-China talks in London. Then, he announced, China had agreed to ease restrictions on rare earths. In return, the United States said it would stop seeking to revoke the visas of Chinese students on U.S. college campuses. And last month, after another meeting in Geneva, the two countries had agreed to dramatically reduce massive taxes they'd slapped on each other's products, which had reached as high as 145% against China and 125% against the U.S. Those triple-digit tariffs threatened to effectively end trade between the United States and China and caused a frightening sell-off in financial markets. In Geneva, the two countries agreed to back off and keep talking: America's tariffs went back down to a still-high 30% and China's to 10%. That led to the talks in London earlier this month and to this week's announcement. If nothing else, the two countries are trying to ratchet down tensions after demonstrating how much they can hurt each other. 'The U.S. and China appear to be easing the chokeholds they had on each other's economies through export controls on computer chips and rare earth minerals, respectively,' said Eswar Prasad, professor of trade policy at Cornell University. "This is a positive step but a far cry from signaling prospects of a substantial de-escalation of tariffs and other trade hostilities.'' Trump launched a trade war with China in his first term, imposing tariffs on most Chinese goods in a dispute over China's attempts to supplant U.S. technological supremacy. Trump's trade team charged that China was unfairly subsidizing its own tech companies, forcing U.S. and other foreign companies to hand over sensitive technology in exchange for access to the Chinese market and even engaging outright theft of trade secrets. The squabbling and negotiating of the past few months appear to have done little to resolve Washington's complaints about unfair Chinese trade practices and America's massive trade deficit with China, which came to $262 billion last year. This week's agreement 'includes absolutely nothing related to the U.S.'s concerns regarding China's trade surplus or non-market behavior,'' said Scott Kennedy of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 'If the two sides can implement these elements of the ceasefire, then they could begin negotiations on issues which generated the initial escalation in tensions in the first place.'' Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has made aggressive use of tariffs. In addition to his levies on China, he has imposed "baseline'' 10% taxes on imports from every country in the world . And he's announced even higher taxes — so-called reciprocal tariffs ranging from 11% to 50% — on countries with which the United States runs a trade deficit. But after financial markets sank on fears of massive disruption to world trade, Trump suspended the reciprocal levies for 90 days to give countries a chance to negotiate reductions in their barriers to U.S. exports. That pause lasts until July 8. On Friday, Bessent told Fox Business Network that the talks could extend beyond the deadline and be 'wrapped up by Labor Day'' Sept. 1 with 10 to 12 of America's most important trading partners. Trump further played down the July 8 deadline at a White House press conference Friday by noting that negotiations are ongoing but that 'we have 200 countries, you could say 200 countries-plus. You can't do that.' Instead of new trade deals, Trump said his administration would in coming days or weeks send out a letter where 'we're just gonna tell them what they have to pay to do business in the United States.'' Separately, Trump took sudden aim at Canada Friday, saying on social media that he's immediately suspending trade talks with that country over its plan to impose a tax on technology firms next Monday. Trump called Canada's digital services tax 'a direct and blatant attack on our country.' The digital services tax will hit companies like Amazon, Google, Meta, Uber and Airbnb with a 3% levy on revenue from Canadian users. It will apply retroactively, leaving U.S. companies with a $2 billion bill due at the end of the month.
