The U.S. Department of Commerce is holding its first Foreign Supply Chain Summit

El United States Department of Commerce, in collaboration with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), hosted the inaugural Supply Chain Summit. This event brought together leaders from government, industry, academia, and civil society, and highlighted the work of the administration Biden-Harris and the industry to move from a reactive stance to global disruptions in supply chains to a more proactive one, focused on strengthening their resilience.

“The Biden-Harris administration knows that securing American supply chains is vital to protecting our national security and improving our economic competitiveness,” said Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raymond“By working with industry and taking an analytical and proactive approach, we seek to prevent supply chain failures that raised costs for Americans during the pandemic, and create new economic opportunities for communities across the country.”

The Department of Commerce is committed to continuing to build on the outcomes of the 2024 Summit, working closely with industry leaders, SMEs, and international partners to build more resilient, sustainable, and diversified supply chains.

Undersecretary of Commerce, Don Graves, stressed the importance of the measures adopted by the Department: “The actions we are taking to secure our supply chains are possible thanks to the work we have done since day one, leveraging our innovative capabilities to prioritize risk assessment and resilience in our trade engagement. We remember the dark days of the Covid, when medical devices, personal protective equipment, critical technologies and everyday products were unattainable. So mitigating the impact was the first step, and turning reactive policies into proactive ones is our second chapter, as was shown at the Summit.”

During the event, and as part of the Biden-Harris administration's commitment to strengthening supply chains, the Department of Commerce Supply Chain Center introduced an innovative supply chain risk assessment tool, called SCALE. This tool uses a comprehensive set of indicators to assess structural risks across various industries in the U.S. economy. SCALE will enable the U.S. government to: Be more proactive and strategic in identifying and managing risks in supply chains, facilitating data-driven conversations with industry on risks, opportunities and actions to strengthen resilience.

Grant Harris, Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Analysis, highlighted the impact of the SCALE tool: “To be proactive, we need the right insights and information, and we need to make data more useful. SCALE is a groundbreaking tool because it revolutionizes our ability to understand systemic vulnerabilities in supply chains that threaten U.S. economic and national security.”

Featured speakers at the Summit included Secretary Raimondo, Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves, Deputy Secretary of Energy David Turk, Deputy National Security Advisor Anne Neuberger, Deputy National Security Advisor National Security Daleep Singh, Deputy Secretary Grant Harris, and Ambassador Michael Froman. All underscored the critical importance of supply chain resilience to U.S. economic and national security, as well as the key role of public-private cooperation in this effort.

To further strengthen the global resilience of supply chains, the Department of Commerce announced seven new strategic partnerships with key players in industry and academia. These collaborations will help the Department promote the global competitiveness of American companies by making them more resilient and innovative.