(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Biggest Mid-Year U.S. Trade Winners & Losers II

Tags

CCP Virus, competitiveness, coronavirus, COVID 19, intermediate goods, manufacturing, supply chains, Trade, Trade Deficits, trade surpluses, Wuhan virus, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Last Friday, RealityChek launched its midyear 2000 review of U.S. trade flows – which speaks volumes about which parts of the economy have held up best and have been hit harrdest by the CCP Virus. Today, following that post’s look at the goods sectors that have racked up the biggest trade surpluses and deficits between January and June, 2019, and this January and June, we’ll examine which industries have seen their trade balances improve and worsen the most during this period, and how these lists compare with those of full-year 2019.

Three big takeaways here: First, in contrast to the lists of biggest trade surplus and deficit sectors presented last week, which featured surprisingly little change on a year-to-date basis, the lists showing the sectors where the biggest changes in trade balances took place revealed enormous turnover.

Second, although a majority of the industries that saw the greatest improvements in their trade balances were already running trade surpluses, a significant number (seven of the 22 that could be counted in this way) were industries running deficits. (Because figures for crude oil and natural gas are now reported separately, as opposed to being lumped together, no such conclusion was possible for them.) Even better, one sector – miscellaneous metal containers – turned its deficit into a surplus. One plausible interpretation is that most of the most globally competitive industries in the nation have retained competitiveness so far during the pandemic, and some have improved lagging competitiveness. All the same, clearly at work here, especially concerning the sectors whose deficits have shrunk markedly, are virus-related effects that may be relatively short-lived.

Third, although most of the 21 parts of the economy whose trade balances deteriorated the most were industries already in deficit – indicating that sectors in competitive trouble pre-CCP Virus remain in such trouble – eight were running trade surpluses. That pattern indicates that the virus has damaged them.

One methodological point that needs to be made right away: These “Top 20” lists both contain more than 20 entries because of confusion caused by apparent duplication for aerospace-related sectors in the government industry classification system I’ve used. So I decided to present any aerospace data that the government figures indicate belong in these Top 20s, but also added other sectors to maximize the odds that each list contains 20 sectors that truly qualify.

But before getting too deeply into the methodological weeds, here’s the list of the Top 20 sectors that generated the greatest improvements in their trade balances between the first six months of 2019 and the first six months of 2020, along with the percentage changes. And as mentioned above, their ranking on the comparable full-year 2019 list is included. Industries that didn’t make that 2019 list are indicated with a hyphen. Industries in surplus and deficit are identified with Ss and Ds, respectively.

biggest trade balance improvers                                                               2019 rank

1. miscellanous metal containers:       $91m deficit to $72m surplus              –

2 miscellaneous grains:                             +503.71 percent                             –   S

3. semiconductor production equipment:  +245.18 percent                             –   S

4. iron ores:                                               +234.48 percent                              –   S

5. electronic connectors and parts:            +144.56 percent                            –    S

6. gaskets, packing and sealing devices:   +103.91 percent                            –     S

7. semiconductors:                                      +86.87 percent                            1     S

8. animal fats and oils:                                +82.00 percent                            8     S

9. crude oil:                                                 +60.24 percent               (new category)

10. misc measuring & control devices:       +54.06 percent                           –      S

11. heavy duty trucks and chassis:              +48.74 percent                           –      D

12. aircraft parts & auxiliary equipment:    +43.89 percent                           –      D

13. specialty canned foods:                         +42.37 percent                          20     S

14. cheese:                                                  +40.06 percent                           13     S

15. misc non-ferrous smelted metals:         +37.01 percent                            –      S

16. construction machinery:                       +36.34 percent                            –      D

17. peanuts:                                                +36.12 percent                            –      S

18. autos and light trucks:                         +35.76 percent                             –     D

19. aircraft engines and engine parts:       +35.55 percent                             –      D

20. iron and steel products:                       +34.99 percent                            –      D

21. male cut and sew apparel:                  +33.37 percent                             –      D

22. pulp mill products:                             +33.16 percent                             –      S

Let’s return to the methodology briefly. All the statistics in these mid-year trade posts cover goods industries. Service industries are left out because the government database I rely doesn’t report on the latter, and because comparably detailed data won’t be released for a while.

This database is maintained by the the U.S. International Trade Commission, which enables users to access them with its terrific Trade Dataweb interactive search engine. The specific goods categories used are those of the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) – the federal government’s main way to slice and dice the U.S. economy. And the level of disaggregation I’m using is the sixth, since it’s the level at which you can keep the numbers of sectors analyzed manageable, and at the same time make distinctions between final products on the one hand, and their parts and components on the other (vitally important given much more specialized manufacturing has become).

Aside from the substantial degree of turnover, one prominent feature of this list is its domination by intermediate goods. Parts, components, and materials used in the production of final manufactured goods, or the machinery used in that production, account for 15 of these 22 sectors. Perhaps it’s a sign that global supply chains have proven more resilient during the pandemic than is commonly supposed, and that U.S. links on these chains have been performing exceedingly well?

In addition, 17 of the 22 are manufacturing industries, compared with 16 of the 20 on last year’s list. That’s a step backward for fans of U.S.-based manufacturing, but not a big one.

Nevertheless, two of the sectors that have improved their trade balances most are in the aerospace sector, and regardless of classification issues, since both those industries are deficit industries, their performance undoubtedly reflects both the drastic reductions in air travel imposed due to the CCP Virus (which affect orders for imported engines, their parts, and other parts)nd these goods), as well as the troubles at Boeing, which also reduce demand for foreign-made inputs.

A third deficit manufacturing sector – men’s and boy’s apparel – has also surely seen its trade shortfall shrink because American consumers are buying so few of these largely foreign-made goods. (In an upcoming post looking at export and import changes, we’ll see if this domestic demand-related hypotheses holds any water.)

Now it’s time for the list of those sectors in which trade balances worsened the most.

biggest trade balance losers                                                                2019 rank

1. misc non-ferrous extruded metals:       -1,354.67 percent                 7      D

2. smelted non-ferrous non-alum metals: -1,254.08 percent                 1      D

3. farm machinery and equipment:             -404.19 percent                  –      D

4. miscellaneous textile products:              -399.55 percent                  –      D

5. computer storage devices:                      -271.11 percent                  –      D

6. jewelry and silverware:                            -98.97 percent                  –      D

7. non-diagnostic biological products:         -61.67 percent                16     S

8. computer parts:                                        -60.12 percent                  –      S

9. misc electrical equipment/components:  -50.76 percent                 15    D

10. misc apparel & apparel accessories:     -46.82 percent                   –     D

11. non-anthracite coal/petroleum gases:   -44.91 percent                   –      S

12. cyclic crude & intermediate products: -40.48 percent                   –      S

13. motor vehicle bodies:                           -39.49 percent                  –       S

14. computer storage devices:                   -39.07 percent                   –      D

15. civil aircraft, engines, equip, parts:     -36.95 percent                   –      S

16. medicinal/botanical drugs/vitamins:   -28.40 percent                   –      D

17. perfumes, makeup, and toiletries:       -28.19 percent                   –      S

18. communication and energy wire:        -25.63 percent                   –     D

19. power distribn/specialty transformers: -24.03 percent                  –     D

20. misc electronic components:               -23.92 percent                   –     D

21. corrugated & solid fiber boxes:           -23.61 percent                   –     S

Turnover here has been even greater than on the improvers’ list, with only four of the 21 sectors appearing on the full-year, 2019 list. And talk about manufacturing-heavy! Industry represents all of the sectors save one (non-anthracite coal and petroleum gases). That’s more than the 17 of 20 on the full-year 2019 list of trade deficit growers.

Moreover the dominance of intermediate goods industries (only four of the 20 manufacturing sectors – medicinal and botanical drugs and vitamins; perfumes, makeup, and toiletress, apparel and apparel accessories’ and jewelry and silverware) looks like evidence that not all such U.S. supply chain-related sectors have performed relatively well during the pandemic.

But neither actual deficits and surpluses nor how they’ve changed tell the whole story about the CCP Virus’ impact on American trade flows and competitiveness. The export and import flows that comprise them need to be examined, too, and they’ll both be coming up on RealityChek.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Without Supply Chain Transparency, There’s No Supply Chain Security

Tags

Bureau of Economic Analusis, Defense Department, Defense Innovation Unit, defense manufacturing, election 2020, FDI, foreign direct investment, GAO, Government Accountability Office, health security, Joe Biden, medical equipment, national security, offshoring, Pentagon, supply chains, Trump, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Earlier this month, I criticized Joe Biden’s new plan to strengthen U.S. domestic manufacturing with a special eye toward boosting the security of key supply chains for holding out as a model the Pentagon’s work on defense-related manufacturing. Just this week, I found even more evidence to support the view that if the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is really serious about achieving this goal (and given his longstanding record on trade and globalization issues, ample doubt is warranted) he’ll need a dramatically new model.

By the way, these findings show that the Trump administration also remains too far from getting its own supply chain act together.  And the main reason is a dangerous – and wholly unnecessary – lack of supply chain transparency.

The evidence comes from a September, 2019 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (an investigative arm of Congress) that summarizes the views of a panel of specialists convened to discuss foreign threats to the U.S. defense manufacturing base, and presents findings on the subject from various U.S. government agency, private sector, and university studies. The threats include the offshoring of the production of key defense-related goods; takeovers by foreign entities of U.S.-based facilities that supply these products, along with important services, or foreign acquisitions of significant stakes in these facilities; and the loss of U.S. competitiveness in these areas for market- and competition-related reasons and the resulting turns to foreign suppliers.

And crucially, the panelists consulted (listed on p. 40 of the report) include no notable supposed globalization alarmists or China hawks. In fact, one panelist was a senior executive of the U.S.-China Business Council, which has been a major pillar of what I call the nation’s Offshoring Lobby.

The report correctly noted that the use of foreign-origin goods and services can benefit U.S. national security interests. Specifically, it can “lower costs and provide better access to foreign workers and markets [which can help the companies in question gain the benefits of economies of scale by winning more customers].” Moreover, “When companies that offshore contract with DOD [the Departent of Defense], they can pass those benefits along. Foreign investment can help U.S. companies grow.”

So as in all areas of public policy, the key is finding the best balance, and reasonable people can always legitimately disagree on where it’s found. But here’s what’s really alarming about the message sent by the GAO report – and collectively by all the specialists and materials consulted: Neither the Defense Department nor any other branch of the U.S. government has the ability needed to achieve this goal partly because they lack the information needed to identify vulnerabilities, and partly because much helpful information is kept confidential at the request of private industry.

Here are the main relevant observations and conclusions presented in the report making emphatically clear that the nation lacks the supply chain transparency vital to improving supply chain security:

>”[T]he absence of a common definition of offshoring makes it difficult to analyze the extent to which offshoring is occurring in general as well as its effect on the defense supplier base. As such, the extent of offshoring and its effects are largely unknown.”

>”[P]ublicly available data do not provide granularity to analyze foreign direct investments in industry subsectors that comprise the defense supplier base.”

>”Pentagon “industrial policy officials told us that BEA’s [the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis] publicly available data are not complete enough to assess foreign investments in U.S. defense industrial subsectors. We also found that BEA does not disclose certain data for industry subsectors if the data would disclose the identity of individual companies, as these data are considered confidential. For example, BEA data on new foreign direct investment from China in the U.S. industry subsector “electrical equipment, appliances and component manufacturing” are not publicly available for 3 of the 5 years we reviewed.”

>”[A]ccording to BEA, new foreign direct investment data do not capture foreign investment transactions that involve less than 10 percent voting ownership in a U.S. enterprise. This may include data on venture capital investments in U.S. start-ups. According to a report by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) within DOD, there are an increasing number of investments in U.S. venture-backed startups from China-based investors that are not tracked by the U.S. government. This limits full visibility into foreign investors and the technologies they are investing in, as well as any increase or decrease in investment flows.”

>The DIU “echoed concerns about the limitations of U.S. government data and stated that the U.S. government does not comprehensively track all available data on investments, including those from private sources to assemble a complete picture of the level of foreign investment in U.S. companies.”

One big takeaway from the above is that the Defense Department is far from the only culprit here. Much more important, though, nothing could be clearer from this list of information gaps than that the Pentagon that Biden would rely on hasn’t made much of an effort to close them. And although the Trump administration has rhetorically prioritized reshoring manufacturing back to the United States in part for national security-related reasons, and can boast noteworthy progress in changing the U.S. trade policies that have encouraged so much defense-related offshoring, it’s clearly made little progress in making sure that it has the most fundamental information it needs to make sound decisions.

Also critical to recognize: It’s not that this information doesn’t exist. As I’ve previously noted, the companies that produce these goods and provide these services know exactly they, and most of their own contractors and subcontractors, are doing. Fully understanding and optimizing their own operations, after all, is one of the main ways they make money.

And the best way to extract what the government needs is to require legally what I’ve described as “Truth in Globalization” – and require it fast. Otherwise, no matter who wins the Presidency in November, the U.S. government will needlessly keep flying blind on supply chain security.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Evidence that the Multinationals Really Did Sell the U.S. Out to China

Tags

capital spending, chemicals, China, computers, electronics, health security, healthcare goods, information technology, investment, Lenin, manufacturing, multinational companies, national security, offshoring, offshoring lobby, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, pharmaceuticals, research and development, supply chains, tech, tech transfer, U.S-China Economic and Security Review Commission, USCC, World Trade Organization, WTO

RealityChek readers and anyone who’s familiar with my work over many years know that I’ve often lambasted U.S. multinational companies for powerfully aiding and abetting China’s rise to the status of economic great power status – and of surging threat to U.S. national security and prosperity. In fact, the dangers posed by China’s activities and goals have become so obvious that even the American political and policy establishments that on the whole actively supported the policies – and that permitted money from this corporate Offshoring Lobby to drive their decisions – are paying attention.

If you still doubt how these big U.S. corporations have sold China much of the rope with which it’s determined to hang their own companies and all of America (paraphrasing Lenin’s vivid supposed description of and prediction about the perilously shortsighted greed of capitalists), you should check out the latest report of the U.S-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC). As made clear by this study from an organization set up by Congress to monitor the China threat, not only have the multinationals’ investments in China figured “prominently in China’s national development ambitions.” They also “may indirectly erode the United States’ domestic industrial competitiveness and technological leadership relative to China.”

Worst of all, “as U.S. MNE (“multinational enterprise) activity in China increasingly focuses on the production of high-end technologies, the risk that U.S. firms are unwittingly enabling China to achieve its industrial policy and military development objectives rises.”

And a special bonus – these companies’ offshoring has greatly increased America’s dependence on China for supplies of crucial healthcare goods.

Here’s just a sampling of the evidence presented (and taken directly by the Commission from U.S. government reports):

> U.S. multinationals “employ more people in China than in any other country outside of the United States, primarily in the assembly of computers and electronic products.” Moreover, this employment skyrocketed by 574.6 percent from 2000 to 2017.

> “China is the fourth-largest destination for U.S. MNE research and development (R&D) expenditure and increasingly competes with advanced economies in serving as a key research hub for U.S. MNEs. The growth of U.S. MNE R&D expenditure in China is also comparatively accelerated, averaging 13.6 percent yearon-year since 2003 compared with 7.1 percent for all U.S. MNE foreign affiliates in the same period. This expenditure is highest in manufacturing, particularly in the production of computers and electronic products.”

> “U.S. MNE capital expenditure in China has focused on the creation of production sites for technology products. This development is aided by the Chinese government’s extensive policy support to develop China.”

> The multinationals’ capital spending on semiconductor manufacturing assets “has jumped 166.7 percent from $1.2 billion in 2010 (the earliest year for which complete [U.S government] data is available) to $3.2 billion in 2017, accounting for 90 percent of all U.S. MNE expenditure on computers and electronic products manufacturing assets in China.”

> “China has grown from the 20th-highest source of U.S. MNE affiliate value added in 2000 ($5.5 billion) to the fifth highest in 2017 ($71.5 billion), driven primarily by the manufacture of computers and electronic products as well as chemicals. The surge is especially notable in semiconductors and other electronic components.”

> “[P]harmaceutical manufacturing serves as the largest chemical sector in terms of value-added [a measure of manufacturing output that seeks to eliminate double-counting of output by stripping out the contribution of intermediate goods used in final products]…” And chemicals – the manufacturing category that include pharmaceuticals – has become the second largest U.S-owned industry in China measured by the value of its assets (after computers and electronic products).

Incidentally, the report’s tendency to use 2000 as a baseline year for examining trends is no accident. That’s the year before China was admitted into the World Trade Organization (WTO) – and the numbers strongly reenforce the argument that the multinationals so avidly sought this objective in order to make sure that the value of their huge planned investments in China wouldn’t be kneecapped by any unilateral U.S. tariffs on imports from China (including those from their factories). For the WTO’s combination of consensus decision-making plus the protectionist natures of most of its members’ economies created a towering obstacle to Washington acting on its own to safeguard legitimate American domestic economic interests from Chinese and other foreign predatory trade and broader economic activity.

At the same time, despite the WTO’s key role in preserving the value of the multinationals’ export-focused China investments, the USCC study underestimates how notably such investment remains geared toward exporting, including to the United States. This issue matters greatly because chances are high that this kind of investment (in China or anywhere else abroad) has replaced the multinationals’ factories and workers in the United States. By contrast, multinational investment in China (or anywhere else abroad) that’s supplying the China market almost never harms the U.S. domestic economy and in fact can help it, certainly in early stages, by providing foreign customers that add to the domestic customers of U.S.-based manufacturers.

There’s no doubt that the phenomenal growth of China’s own consumer class in recent decades has, as the China Commission report observes, generated more and more American business decisions to supply those customers from China. In other words, the days when critical masses of Chinese couldn’t possibly afford to buy the goods they made in U.S.- and other foreign-owned factories are long gone.

But the data presented by the USCC does nothing to support this claim, and the key to understanding why is the central role played by computer, electronics, and other information technology-related manufacturing in the U.S. corporate presence in China. For when the Commission (and others) report that large shares of the output of these factories are now sold to Chinese customers, they overlook the fact that many of these other customers are their fellow entities comprising links of China-centric corporate supply chains. These sales, however, don’t mean that the final customers for these products are located in China.

In other words, when a facility in China that, for example, performs final assembly activities on semiconductors sells those chips to another factory in China that sticks them into computers or cell phones or HDTV sets, the sale is regarded as one made to a Chinese customer. But that customer in turn surely sells much of its own production overseas. As the USCC documents, China’s consumer market for these goods has grown tremendously, too. But China’s continually surging share of total global production of these electronics products (also documented in the Commission report) indicates that lots of this output continues to be sold overseas.

Also overlooked by the USCC – two other disturbing apects of the multinationals’ activities in China.

First, it fails to mention that all the computer and electronics-related investment in China – which presumably includes a great deal of software-related investment – has contributed to China’s economic and military ambitions not only by transferring knowhow to Chinese partners, but by teaching huge numbers of Chinese science and technology workers how to generate their technology advances. The companies’ own (often glowing) descriptions of these training activities – which have often taken the form of dedicated training programs and academies – were revealed in this 2013 article of mine.

Second, the Commission’s report doesn’t seem to include U.S. multinationals’ growing investments not simply in high tech facilities in China that they partly or wholly own, but in Chinese-owned entities. As I’ve reported here on RealityChek, these capital flows are helping China develop and produce high tech goods with numerous critical defense-related applications, and the scale has grown so large that some elements of the U.S. national security community had been taking notice as early as 2015. And President Trump seems to be just as oblivious to these investments as globalist former President Barack Obama was.

These criticisms aside, though, the USCC has performed a major public service with this survey of the multinationals’ China activities. It should be must reading in particular for anyone who still believes that these companies – whose China operations have so greatly enriched and therefore strengthened the People’s Republic at America’s expense – deserve much influence over the U.S. China policy debate going forward.

Im-Politic: On Biden’s New Plan for Medical & Other Supply Chain Security

Tags

alliances, Biden, CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, Defense Department, Defense Production Act, DPA, election 2020, health security, healthcare goods, Im-Politic, manufacturing, offshoring, Pentagon, pharmaceuticals, PPE, supply chains, tariffs, taxes, Trade, Wuhan virus

Joe Biden’s plan for rebuilding U.S. supply chains to ensure American access to critical products like healthcare goods came out yesterday, and any fair reading would have to conclude that these proposals are about as serious as the presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee’s proposals in related areas – like China policy. That is to say, they’re not terribly serious at present.

As with China policy, the first concern entails credibility. In 2011, when Biden was Barack Obama’s Vice President, the Commerce Department issued a report detailing all sorts of dangerous vulnerabilities in U.S. supplies of all manner of vital healthcare goods. The “Obama-Biden administration” did absolutely nothing in response – unless you count avidly pursuing offshoring-friendly trade deals, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that were bound to worsen these vulnerabilities. You could also throw in a record of continually coddling the trade and broader economic predation practiced by China, which surely fostered similar results.

As a result, it’s legit to ask whether any of these proposals will survive Day One of a Biden presidency.

In this vein, it’s more than a little disturbing that Biden proposes to use the Defense Department’s policies to minimize supply chain vulnerabilities as his model for addressing such problems for a wide variety of products –not just healthcare-related goods. These include “energy and grid resilience technologies, semiconductors, key electronics and related technologies, telecommunications infrastructure, and key raw materials.”

Unfortunately, the principal lessons taught by the Defense Department’s record on supply chains are how to duck the problem or define it out of existence, and the administration in which Biden served was no exception. Some of the biggest specific problems (as made clear in this Obama administration report):

>The Pentagon’s overall assessments prioritized financial metrics, not specific domestic production capabilities, as measures of the defense manufacturing base’s health.

>Its treatment of globalization’s challenges placed major emphasis on taking “advantage of emerging capabilities, regardless of where they originate,” not maximizing domestic production capabilities.

>Although specific vulnerabilities – and the related need to maintain or rebuild adequate domestic capabilities – were acknowledged, this vulnerabilities were consistently portrayed as isolated holes that could somehow be plugged without taking into account the dependence of these narrowly defined products on their own supply chains. Indeed, Biden’s new plan seems to reveal a similar flaw when it describes itself as “a set of targeted proposals to ensure the United States has the domestic manufacturing capacity necessary for critical supply chains.”

>Moreover, the Department has long supported objectives such as interoperability with allies’ armed forces and maintaining traditional – pre-Trump – global systems of what it defined as free trade, both of which often clashed with the goal of incentivizing domestic production. These goals were explicitly stated in this George W. Bush administration report, and here’s no evidence that the Obama-Biden Pentagon ever disagreed.

Indeed, the new Biden blueprint indicates that the former Vice President’s definition of supply chain security is pretty global, instead of national, as well:

“Instead of insulting our allies and undermining American global leadership, Biden will engage with our closest partners so that together we can build stronger, more resilient supply chains and economies in the face of 21st century risks. Just like the United States itself, no U.S. ally should be dependent on critical supplies from countries like China and Russia. That means developing new approaches on supply chain security — both individually and collectively — and updating trade rules to ensure we have strong understandings with our allies on how to best ensure supply chain security for all of us.”

If America’s allies were proven reliable suppliers of these products themselves, Biden’s perspective would make sense. But the list of countries that have recently hoarded medical goods for themselves as soon as the CCP Virus pandemic’s full dangers became apparent included most of these allies – meaning that the U.S. vulnerability problem far exceeds “China and Russia.”

Nor is it entirely evident how clearly Biden has thought though the tax policy provisions of his plan. Tax policy’s role is clearly viewed as crucial, as the plan emphasizes that

“Pharmaceutical offshoring has been heavily driven by tax code provisions that have encouraged companies to locate pharmaceutical production in low-tax countries even where those countries have labor and other costs comparable to the U.S.”

Consequently, Biden says he will “eliminate Trump Administration tax incentives for offshoring and pursue other tax code changes that will encourage pharmaceutical production in the U.S.”

At the same time, Biden favors raising the overall U.S. corporate tax rate from the 21 percent to which it has recently been lowered to 28 percent, along with a 15 percent “minimum tax” on large corporations. So good luck to drug companies – or any other companies making goods deemed critical by Biden – gleaning clear reshoring or domestic production ramping signals from this combination.

Perhaps any confusion will be cleared up by other alleged Biden measures to boost U.S.-based production – like “new targeted financial incentives, including tax credits, investments, matching funds for state and local incentives, R&D support, and other incentives to encourage the production of designated critical materials such as semiconductors in the United States”? At best, business will surely need to see many more details along these lines before committing the needed capital.

Unless maybe as President, Biden will simply mandate that the needed new facilities will be built when all else fails (as well as in tandem with those other policies)? That’s obviously the implication of his promise to use the Defense Production Act (DPA) “to its fullest extent to rebuild domestic manufacturing capacity in critical supply chains, using the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and applying them to our national needs.”

Or does Biden actually view the DPA as his primary tool for “generating the domestic mobilization we need”? That seems like a reasonable conclusion, especially given that it’s the first specific measure he mentions. Maybe instead he’s really talking about using the Act simply “to direct U.S. companies to ramp up production of critical products that will be needed over the near-term.”

Regardless of Biden’s real intentions, though, it’s anything but clear how Biden believes the DPA can be used to increase U.S. production in many of the industries he mentions as vital where such output has largely migrated overseas That’s especially true for the “semiconductors, key electronics and related technologies, [and] telecommunications infrastructure” he specifies. It’s sure going to be far more difficult than, say, ordering auto companies, to make ventilators.

It’s just as unclear how these Biden’s ideas can succeed without a much stronger trade policy dimension – and specifically, continued and even expanded tariffs. And it shouldn’t be limited to straightening out the muddled views mentioned above. 

Specifically, maintaining levies on chronically subsidized and dumped products like metals, along with sweeping tariffs on systemically protectionist China (and on other similar countries) would send the all the companies and sectors concerned an invaluable message. Bipartisan endorsement of these protections would demonstrates that they really can have confidence that new investments won’t be decimated by trade and broader economic predation. Just as important, an enduring commitment to tariffs would help convince overseas competitors (domestic and foreign owned) that if they want to sell the products in which they have big edges to Americans, they’ll need to make these products in America.

The good news is that at least some of these mysteries may be cleared up “soon,” when this Biden plan promises the former Vice President will release his “comprehensive strategy to create American jobs through modern American manufacturing.” The bad news is that if he what he’s said and written so far is any indication, he’ll have a lot of rewriting to do.

Glad I Didn’t Say That: No CCP Virus Learning Curve for Globalization Zealots

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China, Daniel Griswold, free trade, George Mason University, Glad I Didn't Say That!, global supply chains, globalization, health security, healthcare goods, Mercatus Center, Paul Hannon, Stu Woo, supply chains, The Wall Street Journal, Trade

“US supply chains for medical goods are already diversified and are not overly reliant on China.”

Daniel Griswold, Mercatus Center, George Mason University, April 3, 2020

Number of countries that have imposed export curbs on healthcare-related goods, 2020: 85

Number of individual healthcare-related goods export controls imposed, 2020: 186

– The Wall Street Journal, May 25, 2020

(Sources: “The Coronavirus Should Not Prompt Us to Rethink Globalization,” The Bridge, Mercatus Center, George Mason University, April 3, 2020, https://www.mercatus.org/bridge/commentary/coronavirus-should-not-prompt-us-rethink-globalization and “Steep Drop in Trade Flows Shows Pitfalls of Cross-Border Supply Chains,” by Paul Hannon and Stu Woo, The Wall Street Journal, May 25, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/steep-drop-in-trade-flows-shows-pitfalls-of-cross-border-supply-chains-11590416983)

Following Up: National Radio Podcast on China Trade Policy Now On-Line…& More!

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CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, decoupling, economics, Following Up, free trade, Gordon G. Chang, IndustryToday.com, manufacturing, supply chains, The John Batchelor Show, Trade, Wuhan virus

I’m pleased to announce that the podcast is now on-line of my interview last night on John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show.  Click here for a great and timely conversation with John and co-host Gordon G. Chang on how U.S. manufacturers are dealing with China during the current CCP Virus crisis – and how they keep decoupling from the People’s Republic.

Also, it was great to see IndustryToday.com re-post (with permission of course!) my Wednesday piece on how the dangers of doing business with China are greatly undermining the purely economic case for the freest possible global trade flows.  Read it at this link.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Making News: A New Trade and Globalization Podcast Interview, and on National Radio Tonight

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America Trends Podcast, China, decoupling, globalization, Gordon G. Chang, Jobs, Larry Rifkin, Making News, manufacturing, supply chains, The John Batchelor Show, Trade

I’m pleased to announce that a podcast interview focusing on my views on trade, globalization, and the U.S. economy went on-line yesterday.  The interview, conducted by veteran talk radio show host Larry Rifkin for his America Trends Podcast, was conducted in late January, so the CCP Virus was just becoming a headline issue.  But I think you’ll agree that the analysis of major problems with U.S. trade policy, why they’ve emerged, and how to handle the China challenge, have held up well.  Here’s the link.

In addition, today, I recorded an interview for John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show for broadcast tonight.  The segment deals with the Trump administration’s announced renewed determination to bring U.S.-owned manufacturing and its supply chains out of China, and also features co-host Gordon G. Chang.

Normally, John’s shows are broadcast live, but virus conditions have prevented easy access to his New York City studio.  I don’t know exacty when my segment will air, but you can listen to the entire show on-line starting at 9 PM EST at this link.  As usual, moreover, I’ll post a link to the podcast as soon as one’s available.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Following Up: Podcast Now On-Line of National Radio Interview on the CCP Virus & Global & China Trade

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CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, Following Up, global supply chains, globalization, Gordon G. Chang, supply chains, The John Batchelor Show, Trade, Wuhan virus

You’re in luck! I didn’t get advance word on the exact broadcast time of my interview last night on John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show. But the podcast is now on-line!

Click here for a great discussion (including co-host Gordon G. Chang) of how U.S.-China trade relations could look once the CCP Virus has come and gone, and how the pandemic could change the entire world economy.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Making News: Jim Bohannon Interview on America’s Compromised Health Security Now On-Line; Returning Tonight to Batchelor Show on China & Supply Chains

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CCP Virus, China, coronavirus, COVID 19, Gordon G. Chang, health security, healthcare goods, Making News, manufacturing, medicines, pharmaceuticals, supply chains, The Jim Bohannon Show, The John Batchelor Show, Wuhan virus

I’m pleased to announce that the podcast is on-line of my interview last night on Jim Bohannon’s nationally syndicated radio show.  Click here for a great discussion of America’s troubling dependence on foreign sources of supply for vital medicines and other healthcare products.

Also, I’m slated to return on John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show tonight. John, I, and co-host Gordon G. Chang will be looking at how the CCP Virus crisis is likely to change global supply chains and trade products not only for healthcare products, but for all domestic industry, especially when it comes to China.

Tonight’s segment is a little different from usual, because virus-related disruption has led John to tape his programs for now, and I haven’t yet been told exactly when this particular segment will air.

I’ll certainly post that information on Twitter (a compelling reason to follow me there at @AlanTonelson!), but in the meantime, here‘s where you can listen on-line to this evening’s show.  I’ll be posting a link to that podcast as soon as one’s available. And of course, keep checking with RealityChek for news of other upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Making News: Podcast of Now On-Line of National Radio Appearance on the CCP Virus & U.S. Manufacturing

Tags

CCP Virus, Gordon G. Chang, health security, healthcare products, Making News, manufacturing, supply chains, The John Batchelor Show, Wuhan virus

Sorry this is a little later than usual, but if you click on this link, you’ll be able to listen to the podcast of my Wednesday night appearance on John Batchelor’s nationally syndicated radio show describing U.S. manufacturing’s response to the CCP (for Chinese Commnist Party) Virus crisis.

The segment, co-hosted by Gordon G. Chang, dealt both with the gaps exposed by the crisis in America’s healthcare products supply chains (discussed in detail here and here on RealityChek), and with domestic industry’s potential to reshore this production and re-jigger their stateside factories to deal with the surge in demand for pharmaceuticals, their chemical building blocks, medical devices, and surgical instruments and supplies.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.