Posted on 03/27/2020 7:29:10 PM PDT by Pelham
With the CCP Virus pandemic having exposed scary domestic shortages of critical medical goods ranging from safety masks to ventilators, along with potential shortages of pharmaceuticals, political leaders across the spectrum are finally regretting having allowed so much output of these products to migrate offshore.
China’s role in global supply chains has understandably sparked much of the alarm, since its government has all but threatened to withhold supplies of medicines whenever it wishes. But all told, at least 38 countries (including the 27-member European Union) have curbed exports of anti-pandemic products at some point since the CCP Virus began dominating headlines. So potential foreign chokeholds in the nation’s health care-related supply chains appear global in scope. The federal government’s best data make clear just how widespread the problem has become, and how steadily it’s been growing.
The figures come from the government’s statistics on industry-by-industry manufacturing output and on exports and imports. (The output data can be accessed through databases created by the Census Bureau for its Annual Survey of Manufactures that are located at this link. The trade numbers can be retrieved at an interactive database maintained by the U.S. International Trade Commission that’s located at this link.)
Put together, they reveal how big a share of the American markets for drugs, medical devices, and protective gear is controlled by goods made overseas. The big takeaway is that the nation could be in big enough trouble if supply disruptions were to occur in normal times (say, due to natural disasters in manufacturing centers abroad). During a high-mortality pandemic like the CCP Virus, these levels of foreign dependency are high enough to guarantee significant numbers of needless deaths.
These statistics aren’t problem-free. Principally, because the manufacturing output figures are so granular, and therefore take so long to compile, import penetration
(Excerpt) Read more at theamericanconservative.com ...
@AlanTonelson
Founder of RealityChek - a blog covering economics, national security, tech, & their intersections. Also checking in regularly on the general human condition.
ping
I know we no longer buy any food labeled “made in China”.
Especially Mandarin Oranges. [Isn’t that naming racis’?]
“Especially Mandarin Oranges”
Ha!
As lovely as it would be to bring manufacturing stateside, the prices of the items will be so much higher that they won’t be affordable for most.
It never should have been shipped out in the first place.
My Mandarin oranges are damned tasty and they come from California, a state I hope one day is set free from its demonic overlords.
The fruit is really sweet though, goes well with whiskey vermouth.
Hows the nephrotic syndrome doing?
There was a time not long ago when virtually all of our medical products and pharmaceuticals came out of New Jersey.
I totally loved living in Calif. in the 70s.
As it needs to be once again.
It is dangerous to be dependent upon a potentially hostile power for our medicines.
If I was a CCP war planner I now know what my opening strike would be in a war against the United States. At least until the U.S. wises up enough to be medically prepared.
Seems like at that time most of the medications for the US were being made in Porto Rico which is a part of the US although I think they got tax breaks for being there instead of one of the States.
Does Porto Rico still have a lot of companies producing medications or did they all move to China?
There are a lot of maquiladoras on the Mexican border that put together medical equipment. I have friends who get miserable wages working there, in Nuevo Laredo
I read here somewhere that a hurricane destroyed a major Puerto Rico factory...
Clinton killed the PR tax breaks and the pharmaceuticals moved to China and India.
It was Hurricane Slick Willy.
Better Mexico than China. The new trade agreement requires Maquiladora workers to be paid much better wages.
I suspect they have gone to China.
80% of the medicines we use now are either made in China or their base chemicals come from there.
Agree....better Mexico or Canada, if not in the USA, than China.
All of it. Everything that we’re dependent upon the ChiComs for.
NOW.
Bring it back to this continent.
“and they come from California, a state I hope one day is set free from its demonic overlords.”
From your lips to God’s ears. Those of us still in Occupied California are overmatched.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.