Missouri Senator Josh Hawley introduced a bill that he says will boost U.S. manufacturing and secure the nation’s supply chains.
Hawley called national-wide shortages and manufacturing delays “Joe Biden’s supply chain crisis.”
In a statement, Hawley said the “crisis is getting worse with every passing day, straining the finances of working Americans who have already been forced to endure so much over the past year and a half.”
“Biden’s policies have given us empty shelves and rising prices across the country,” he said.
“It’s past time for the U.S. to end its crippling dependency on foreign manufacturing in countries like China and ensure that we actually produce the goods we need here at home,” Hawley added.
He introduced the Make in America to Sell in America Act which aims to “that would require more than 50% of the value of a product to be produced in the U.S. for it to be sold in the U.S. by 2025,” per The Center Square.
If passed the bill would require the Department of Commerce (DOC), to produce an annual report in conjunction with the Department of Defense (DOD) that would identify which finished and intermediate manufactured goods are critical for the national security of the United States. The report would also identify which goods are key to the industrial base of the country.
Domestic manufacturers would have the option to petition the International Trade Commission and the DoC to take action against importers of goods that did not meet the new standards.
The 50% content requirement – mandating that half of the value of the goods must be produced in the country – would be in effect for three years after the bill’s passage.
“Shelves are empty. Prices are rising and the trade deficit is at a record high,” the senator said on FOX Business last week. “Now is the time for a bold, new economic agenda that will restore the American heartland and put American workers before corporate profits. We cannot let this moment pass and return to Washington’s failed economic consensus.”
American Compass Research Director Wells King told The American Conservative that the bill was a “constructive” step because its requirements were “simpler, require less discretionary authority,
“The Made in America to Sell in America Act is a promising proposal that centers on one of the simplest yet most effective tools in industrial policy: local content requirements,” King said in an email to the outlet. “They can be an appropriately blunt instrument for achieving a blunt good, and they’ve been adopted successfully to achieve a goals for technological and industrial development in the past.”
