U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas recently issued a joint statement announcing the completion of a one-year assessment of crucial supply chains that support the United States' information and communications technology (ICT) industry.
According to a news release, the U.S. Departments of Commerce and Homeland Security were directed by Pres. Joe Biden, as part of the Executive Order on America’s Supply Chains, to evaluate current supply chains of certain hardware and software and to identify key risks that would disrupt those supply chains in order to explore strategies that would deter risks and boost supply chain resiliency.
The COVID-19 pandemic and related disruptions exposed existing vulnerabilities in both domestic and global ICT supply chains. The U.S. currently faces challenges in supply chain resilience and economic security, as the ICT industry has been shifting overseas in the past 30 years.
To address these vulnerabilities, the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seek to take actions to bolster America's industrial base.
“We look forward to working with industry stakeholders, foreign governments, and other domestic and international partners to implement measures identified in the assessment that build resilience and security throughout the ICT supply chain and across our nation,” the secretaries said in their joint statement.
The cooperation between agencies is part of a whole-of-government approach to protect and strengthen the supply chains that keep the country's economy running and communities in the U.S. safe.
