US House presents bill to ‘outcompete’ China
Washington, Jan 25 (EFE).- The United States’ Lower House on Tuesday presented a bill aimed at strengthening its domestic supply chains and reinvigorating its economy to “outcompete” China.
“The House took an important step forward today in advancing legislation that will make our supply chains stronger and reinvigorate the innovation engine of our economy to outcompete China and the rest of the world for decades to come,” President Joe Biden said in a statement.
The proposal includes a planned investment of $52 billion to subsidize American manufacturing of semiconductor chips, necessary for civilian and military devices and a shortage of which has caused problems in global supply chains.
The proposals will “help bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States, and they’re squarely focused on easing the sort of supply chain bottlenecks like semiconductors that have led to higher prices for the middle class,” Biden said.
The nearly 3,000-page bill, called the America Competes Act of 2022, also includes a planned investment of $45 billion to improve supply chains nationwide and avoid shortages of critical goods, in addition to ensuring their domestic production.
The proposal would also require companies to notify the government of their intention to move supply chains out of the country, through a review process designed to protect the national economy “from foreign adversaries like China and Russia,” according to a summary of the draft.
In addition, the bill would grant temporary protected status and refugee status to some Hong Kong residents for a period of 18 months, and impose sanctions for rights abuses of the Uyghur minority in the Chinese autonomous region of Xinjiang.
It also contains investments in research and trade measures, as well as various climate-related plans, such as $3 billion to fund the establishment of a domestic solar manufacturing supply chain.
In a statement, conservative congressman Michael McCaul accused the Democratic majority in the Lower House of ‘torpedoing’ “the chance of a bipartisan, bicameral bill to confront the generational threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party” and said that without Republican input, it would have no support from the party.
The Senate must approve the plan before it is signed off by Biden. EFE
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