Bravo to this!
The U.S. Department of Defense has asked Congress to let it fund facilities in the United Kingdom and Australia that process strategic minerals used to make electric vehicles and weapons, calling the proposal crucial to national defense.
The request to alter the Cold War-era Defense Production Act (DPA) came as part of the Pentagon’s recommendations to Congress for how to write the upcoming U.S. military funding bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act.
Congress may reject or accept the proposed changes when it finalizes the bill later this year.
Washington is trying harder to reduce America’s dependence on China for lithium, rare earths and other minerals used to make a range of technologies. Existing law bars DPA funds from being used to dig new mines, but they can be used for processing equipment, feasibility studies and upgrades to existing facilities. Currently, only facilities in the United States and Canada are eligible for DPA funding.
Adding Australia and the United Kingdom, the Pentagon said in the request to Congress, would “allow the U.S. government to leverage the resources of its closest allies to enrich U.S. manufacturing and industrial base capabilities and increase the nation’s advantage in an environment of great competition.”
Relying only on domestic or Canadian sources, the Pentagon said, “unnecessarily constrains” the DPA program’s ability to “ensure a robust industrial base.”
Australia is already America’s indispensable Pacific ally anything that deepens its strategic reliance upon us must be welcomed with open arms.
Perhaps we could sue to become the 51st state, the only one with abortion and gun laws!
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
Latest posts by Houses and Holes
(see all) YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED IN
Anthony Albanese is upset that Labor was not
Prosper Australia has released its 2022 Federal
The marvelous constituents of Goldstein are on
PM Scott Morrison cheated in the last debate:
A
