CNBC reported on Thursday (18th) that the Biden administration will review the supply chain of US semiconductors, high-capacity battery medical supplies, and rare earth metals to assess whether these industries are dominated by countries that are unfriendly to the United States. Meaningful.
The purpose of this assessment is to analyze the resilience and capabilities of the U.S. manufacturing supply chain and defense to support U.S. national security and emergency preparedness. It will review the gap between U.S. manufacturing and critical upstream supply chains, and evaluate whether these supply chains come from differences with the U.S. Dominated by countries with friendly or unstable alliances.
Although the order did not mention China at all, it can largely reflect the United States’ desire to measure the degree of dependence of its economic and military power on China. Biden stated earlier this month that he is preparing for “extreme competition” with China.
The evaluation plan will be implemented in two phases. The first step will be a 100-day review process. During the process, government officials will analyze and report on some of the higher priority supply chains, including semiconductor packaging and testing, electric vehicle batteries, Supply chain of rare earth metals and medical supplies.
The second phase expanded the scope of investigation to various fields, including defense, public health, energy and transportation equipment industries. The government will then make recommendations to Biden on possible actions, including diplomacy, trade route adjustments, or other ways to ensure that the supply chain is not monopolized.
In recent years, political and defense experts have emphasized that the United States is very dependent on China’s rare earth metals, and there are potential strategic concerns in this link. Rare earth metals are used to produce advanced technologies such as computer panels, weapons, and electric vehicles.
Simon Moores, a metal energy expert at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, said that if China cuts off the supply of rare earths to the United States, it will have a devastating blow to the US economy.
Moores said: “According to the experience of lithium metal in the past, China almost used rare earth metals as a counterbalance to the United States, and used its rare earth processing technology to export to rare earth mines around the world to enter the rare earth supply chain. A smart move for the supply chain.”
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