On November 27th, President Biden announced a series of action to support the nation’s supply chain. The White House released an Issue Brief on supply chain resilience, and the current administration’s efforts to invest in the supply chain industry. The administration reported that the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic crisis, combined with other countries unfair trade practices, have “hollowed out the U.S. industrial base, siphoned innovation from the United States, and stifled wage and productivity growth”. President Biden convened the inaugural meeting of the White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience on Monday November 27th, to address these issues and announce initiatives to solve them. The new council included representatives from all executive agencies, notably the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, National Security, and Transportation, Including administrators from the Small Business Administration. During the meeting, the council announced new programs and funds for supply chain initiatives, including $196 million towards infrastructure projects and market expansion in the states, with the end goal of reducing food costs.
Additional supply chain actions include:
Launching the Council on Supply Chain Resilience.
Investing in critical supply chains, including $196 million through USDA to strengthen the food supply chain.
Enabling new cross-governmental supply chain data-sharing capabilities.
Conducting a quadrennial supply chain review.
Creating a new Resilience Center and tabletop exercises for supply chain disruptions.
Launching of DOT Multimodal Freight Office.
Holding a Supply Chain Data and Analytics Summit.
The council also emphasized strengthening ties with economies across the world, and developing a “early warning” system, with the goal of detecting and quickly responding to supply chain disruptions (EU, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, and more).
