The White House recently announced new steps taken intended to help the supply chain in the country, which would, in turn, help businesses with their product inventory and overall business activity. Since the pandemic began, the supply chain has struggled in various regards, especially as many countries around the world enacted restrictions to help combat the spread of the coronavirus.
The United States in particular has realized that their businesses rely on the global supply chain — and rely heavily on other countries around the world. This is most evident when one analyzes the chip crisis. Chips, which are used to create everything from cars to computers, have been in shortage for almost all of the pandemic as the factories in Asia that make the chips have been unable to keep up with supply because of the pandemic. The global supply chain problems then made it nearly impossible for car manufacturers to keep a steady supply of these chips.
This has, in turn, negatively impacted car sales, and the price of cars has surged. The United States has already made steps to help increase chip production in the country, so that businesses here rely less on importing this material.
The steps recently announced by the White House are intended to help the supply chain in both the short term and the long term. These new steps are supposed to allow supply chains in the country to be able to withstand everything from climate troubles to natural or manmade disasters. These steps are also focused on ensuring the small and middle-sized businesses are still able to conduct businesses alongside the large corporations.
This was a major problem for many businesses throughout 2021 — especially when consumer demand picked up as more and more Americans became fully vaccinated. The supply chain problem faced backlogs and bottlenecks around the country and around the world, making it incredibly impossible for many businesses, in various industries, to build up their inventory. When the holiday season began, many analysts warned consumers that stores could have empty shelves because of this.
However, in many large stores, such as Walmart and Target, this worry didn’t actually happen. Large corporations were able to put large amounts of money to ensure that they get enough products into their stores for the holiday rush. Small and medium-sized businesses, however, didn’t have this amount of money to spend to ensure this, and many experienced low inventory as a result.
Now, these new steps by the White House are supposed to ensure that these small and medium-sized businesses are able to benefit from the supply chain. One of the steps outlined includes putting money into ports and other areas of the supply chain to ensure that bottlenecks and clogs at ports keep from happening. A focus on encouraging to “Buy American” is also another step being looked at to help American companies do more business in the country, versus relying on foreign countries to get raw materials and goods (such as the case with chips).
