Project Vault was developed to lend money to miners and entice investment in metals processing in order to build a strategic reserve of critical minerals to protect industry from supply shocks and price volatility.
Last November, the White House released its National Security Strategy of the United States that laid out the Trump administration’s strategy for the Americas. In it, the strategy imperative for the region said that one of Washington’s key goals was to make sure the Americas remains “free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets,” and was supportive of U.S. access to critical supply chains. China wasn’t mentioned by name as the hostile adversary, but China is precisely who the White House had in mind.
Everyone agrees, in particular that reliance on China for key ingredients used to make medicines is risky; and everyone agrees that further up market – in advanced biotech – China is becoming an unmatched rival that could easily shrink America’s role in drug innovation.
Should Chinese organizations and individuals be allowed to donate to American colleges, and should their PhD students have access to scientific research grants? It’s not an easy question to answer.
It’s the second month in a row now that the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging has taken up the question of our woeful generics supply chain. This time, however, Ranking Member Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), started the hearing off by touching on a key topic in pharmaceuticals: the cost equation can no longer override the quality equation.
The overall goods and services deficit number for January looked pretty good – coming in at $54.4 billion, its lowest monthly point in years. But when services are stripped from the equation, the goods trade looks like it has returned to level footing. January’s goods deficit was $81.7 billion, according to Thursday’s trade data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The free trade, foreign policy apparatus on Capitol Hill is openly advocating for the extension of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), with senior committee leaders from both parties coming out in favor of it during a March 3 Center for Strategic and International Studies event about the trade deal’s future.
On Capitol Hill, the defense narrative clearly gets legislators’ attention. It remains the surest way to get Members of Congress thinking about reindustrialization and rebuilding domestic supply chains.
It was no surprise that the 2025 goods deficit broke another record, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) numbers showed recently. The year-ending goods deficit was $1.24 trillion, up from $1.21 trillion in 2024, with the monthly deficit for December looking like historic averages, nearly $100 billion. Nothing seems to stop America’s appetite for imports.
The Senate Finance Committee agrees on two things: First, the U.S. Mexico and Canada Agreement (USMCA) isn’t perfect and a number of issues need fixing. Second, they don’t want tariffs.
