Defense

Trump’s defense-industrial base review coming mid-May

An in-depth review of the American defense-industrial base will be publicly released “around May 15” and will focus heavily on what materials the U.S. is dependent on China for, according to the Pentagon’s top acquisition official.
“What comes up and is quite alarming ― and you will see in the unclassified portion, which should be coming out around May 15 ― is we have an amazing amount of dependency on China,” Ellen Lord said at an event hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “We are sole sources for rare earth minerals, some energetics, different things. This is a problem for us as we move forward.”
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in July ordering the review to discover unhealthy areas in the industrial base or weak spots in the supply chain. That review falls under the overarching idea, pushed heavily by White House Director of Trade and Industrial Policy Peter Navarro, that “economic security is national security.”
More than a dozen working groups from across government have been studying the defense-industrial base to recommend ways to cover gaps and weaknesses. Those groups include representatives from the Pentagon and other agencies like the departments of Commerce and Homeland Security. Some of the working groups are aligned with subsectors like shipbuilding, ground vehicles or radars, while others match cross-cutting topics like the workforce, cybersecurity or electronics.