The COVID-19 pandemic spotlighted the fragility of supply chains in the U.S. To build a more resilient supply chain, the White House just published a 250-page report with assessments and an expansive list of recommendations.
To discuss what these recommendations mean for agriculture, Jared Bernstein, White House Council of Economic Advisers, joined AgriTalk Host Chip Flory on Tuesday, June 8. Listen to their discussion:
“When you’re thinking about supply chains, our goal is more resilient, less fragile,” Bernstein says. “We have seen the fragility of our supply chains exposed during the pandemic. We need to rebuild them with the values of quality, diversification and redundancy.”
Bernstein says the plan will help the U.S. be a global competitor in areas such as advanced manufacturing, semiconductors, large-capacity batteries, electrical vehicles, pharmaceuticals and critical minerals.
The administration will establish a supply-chain disruptions task force to address near-term bottlenecks that can affect the economic recovery. One key member, Bernstein says, will be Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
The plan will include near-term and longer-term approaches.
“The plan initially has a $60 million program to increase the production of advanced pharmaceutical ingredients,” Bernstein says. “This is manufacturing that doesn’t occur here nearly enough; we have to import them. When those links in the supply chain proved to be fragile, we had real problems with our pharmaceuticals.”
In the area of electric batteries, Bernstein says $17 billion is in the initial plan to help companies and consumers of electric vehicles.
“We’ll have tax credits to help incentivize the purchasing of electric vehicles, but also loan programs for companies that can capture us some global market share when it comes to battery production,” he says. “There is a country out there that’s going to dominate global market share and it really hasn’t been determined which one that is. President Biden wants it to be the U.S.”
The plan also calls for investments in research and production of semiconductors in the U.S., Bernstein adds.
Labor has been a pinch point as the U.S. economy starts to reopen. Bernstein says that issue is being addressed in the plan.
“The plan very much includes and allocates resources to make sure we have the skilled workforce we need to implement the supply chain improvements,” he says.
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