On June 14, 2024, President Biden of the United States issued an executive order to formalize the mission of the White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience and requested the council to submit a comprehensive review report by the end of the year.
According to Biden, the U.S. needs resilient, diversified, and secure supply chains to ensure economic prosperity, public health, and national security. The characteristics of a resilient supply chain include increased domestic production, a diverse and flexible supplier base, reliable transportation systems, secure critical infrastructure, ample inventory, secure data networks, a reliable food system, and world-class, globally competitive American manufacturing facilities and workforce.
The President emphasized the importance of close cooperation with allies and partners who share the same values to build global supply chain resilience, promoting collective economic and national security, encouraging innovation, and strengthening the ability to respond to international disasters, emergencies, and recover from them.
The White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience was established on November 27, 2023, composed of cabinet ministers and other key officials from various departments.
President Biden’s executive order issued on Friday requires the council to conduct a supply chain review every four years for industries critical to national security or economic security. The review should involve monitoring existing supply chain processes and relevant data in a timely manner. After each review, the council is to submit a report to the President, with the first report due no later than December 31, 2024, and subsequent reports every four years thereafter.
The council’s mission is to promote the long-term resilience of supply chains and U.S. industrial competitiveness, identify and provide coordinated response measures to address supply chain insecurities, threats, and vulnerabilities, including excessive regional or supplier concentration.
The executive order stipulates that within 30 days of the order’s issuance, members of the White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience are to designate a senior official within their respective agencies or offices responsible for coordinating with the council and overseeing the handling of supply chain resilience issues.
Members of the council include the Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Transportation, and Secretary of Energy, among others.
In March of this year, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo warned about the flexibility of the supply chain, stating, “U.S. companies have realized that our chip supply chain is too concentrated in a few countries in the world.”
She continued, “Just setting aside geopolitics, just in terms of that concentration, you know the old saying: don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Why do we allow ourselves to source so many chips from one or two countries? That’s why we need diversification.”
The Chinese Communist Party’s frequent use of economic coercion in recent years has raised alarms in the United States and Europe. “Decoupling from China” has become a goal of both the United States and the European Union. Western countries hope to reduce reliance on China for critical products to ensure supply chain stability in case of conflicts.