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    Leibowitz on Trade: Strategic Stockpiles and Their Limitations

    Written by Lewis Leibowitz


    The Biden administration, picking up where the “America First” Trump administration left off, extols the virtues of increased production here at home. There are many advantages to this approach, the president says. Increased production in the US will diminish reliance on China in critical materials for electric vehicles (rare earth metals and lithium, for example). More domestic manufacturing will increase job creation.

    Yet, as always with policy debates, there are problems too. Reliance on global supply chains is essential for resources that are not available domestically. There are serious deficiencies in copper, iron ore and bauxite, where domestic production is a tiny fraction of global production.

    Lewis Leibowitz, SMU Contributor

    Lewis Leibowitz

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