Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many U.S. ports are severely congested, which slows down the entire economy. On Nov. 1, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo highlighted improvements regarding this issue.
"Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo states that deploying the National Guard to tackle unprecedented congestion at U.S. ports 'could potentially be very helpful,' but stops short of outlining any plans the administration has to take such an action," Myron Brilliant said in a tweet.
Raimondo stated on Nov. 1 that improvement is definitely happening at congested U.S. ports. Raimondo attended an interview with "Face the Nation," where she said that supply chain issues are directly caused by the pandemic and are only temporary. During the COVID-19 phase, several workers were laid off by different industries.
The news comes a few weeks after the White House increased its efforts to eliminate supply chain bottlenecks that stemmed from the COVID-19 pandemic. Raimondo asserts that the private sector is ultimately responsible for a solution, and that through coordination with the public sector, progress is being made. President Joe Biden also held a meeting where the leaders from 14 countries and the European Union agreed to “foster greater international cooperation on near-term supply-chain disruptions” as per the White House readout of the summit.
Raimondo told “Face the Nation,” “last year during COVID, we shut our economy down. You know, I was the governor at the time. We shut down Rhode Island's economy. We have never seen that before. So that meant factories closed. People went home. You can't just turn the economy back on overnight. So, it takes a little bit of time. I will say we are making progress.”
