President Joe Biden signed an executive order Feb. 24 to strengthen U.S. supply chains in several sectors.
The executive order is meant to strengthen supply chains for active pharmaceutical ingredients, rare earth minerals, semiconductor chips and large capacity batteries.
Administration officials said the executive order was in part prompted by widespread shortages of personal protective equipment and supply chain issues uncovered during the COVID-19 pandemic, NBC News reported. The Feb. 24 executive order is meant to supplement an earlier executive order signed by President Biden to promote supplies made in America.
"While we cannot predict what crisis will hit us, we should have the capacity to respond quickly in the face of challenges. The United States must ensure that production shortages, trade disruptions, natural disasters and potential actions by foreign competitors and adversaries never leave the United States vulnerable again," the White House said in a statement.
Each of the four sectors will go through a 100-day review to assess vulnerabilities in the supply chains.
The order also calls for a one-year review of six sectors: the defense industrial base; the public health and biological preparedness industrial base; the information and communications technology industrial base; the energy sector industrial base; the transportation industrial base; and supply chains for agricultural commodities and food production.
The White House also said the government will commit to regularly reviewing U.S. supply chain resilience.
Read the full fact sheet for the executive order here.
Editor's note: This article was updated at 3:45 p.m. CT Feb. 25 to include additional information released by the White House.