China controls supplies

Alan Dowd documented some problems with China in The American Legion Magazine of December 2020, and I liberally quote from the article.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the adverse impact on the world attributable to China’s domination of the production of medicines, personal protective equipment and other medical supplies. Prior to the pandemic China produced “35.9% of America’s antibiotics, 49.8% of our medical bandages, 71.7% of our facemasks and 77.2% of our plastic gloves.” During the pandemic China “quietly managed to buy up much of the world’s N95 masks.”

China, a potential adversary, also controls the production of rare earth elements, which are used in the manufacture of a wide array of products, including “cell phones, televisions, vehicle engines, computers, lasers, industrial magnets, fiber-optics and superconductors.” They are also used in our military hardware such as “F-35 aircraft and our M1A2 tank.”  

A number of friendly countries are working together to move the manufacture of critical supplies and elements away from China to facilities in Australia, Japan, South Korea, India, Europe and Latin America, but the U.S. cannot rely on foreign manufacturers for these critical products. We must speed up our manufacturing of these items in our country.

– Donald Moskowitz, Londonderry, N.H.