Swordsmyth
10-05-2018, 08:17 PM
The Pentagon intends to invest in domestic manufacturing to reduce its over-reliance on Chinese and other foreign-made parts in American weapons, top defense officials said Thursday.
The U.S. reliance on China is one of many areas discussed in a 146-page report about the health of the defense industrial base that President Trump is scheduled to release on Friday during an event at the White House. Other areas include “accelerating workforce development efforts to grow domestic science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and critical trade skills.”
“The assessment recognizes the global nature of our supply chains and really addresses the need for strengthening alliances and partnerships so that we can jointly address industrial base risk,” Ellen Lord, undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, said Thursday evening during a briefing at the Pentagon.
Pentagon leaders will ask Congress for additional funding for mitigation efforts in its fiscal 2020 budget request to Congress early next year, defense officials said.
“We already have existing industrial-base mitigation tools,” said Eric Chewning, the deputy assistant defense secretary for industrial policy, said at the briefing. “There’s already money available to address some of these challenges.”
The report says China is the only producer of various chemicals needed in missiles and bombs, Japan and European nations are the only suppliers of certain carbon fibers used in missiles, satellites, and space rockets; Germany is the prime supplier of special vacuum tubes for night vision goggles, it says.
More at: https://www.defenseone.com/business/2018/10/trump-wants-chinese-parts-out-american-weapons/151821/?oref=d-topstory
The U.S. reliance on China is one of many areas discussed in a 146-page report about the health of the defense industrial base that President Trump is scheduled to release on Friday during an event at the White House. Other areas include “accelerating workforce development efforts to grow domestic science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and critical trade skills.”
“The assessment recognizes the global nature of our supply chains and really addresses the need for strengthening alliances and partnerships so that we can jointly address industrial base risk,” Ellen Lord, undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, said Thursday evening during a briefing at the Pentagon.
Pentagon leaders will ask Congress for additional funding for mitigation efforts in its fiscal 2020 budget request to Congress early next year, defense officials said.
“We already have existing industrial-base mitigation tools,” said Eric Chewning, the deputy assistant defense secretary for industrial policy, said at the briefing. “There’s already money available to address some of these challenges.”
The report says China is the only producer of various chemicals needed in missiles and bombs, Japan and European nations are the only suppliers of certain carbon fibers used in missiles, satellites, and space rockets; Germany is the prime supplier of special vacuum tubes for night vision goggles, it says.
More at: https://www.defenseone.com/business/2018/10/trump-wants-chinese-parts-out-american-weapons/151821/?oref=d-topstory