President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday aiming to identify and fix potential national security vulnerabilities by requiring defense contractors to screen their supply chains.
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The order attempts to stop weapons makers from working with certain foreign suppliers of concern, including China — which has been a long-standing issue for the complicated and oftentimes murky defense and manufacturing supply chains.
The order requires contractors to map their supply chains from raw materials to final products and “fix them on a strict, tracked timeline,” said Peter Navarro, the White House senior counselor for trade and manufacturing.
There is already a law barring contractors from using materials from certain nations that the U.S. deems a threat, such as China. The order requires contractors prove they’ve exhausted all other options to receive a waiver from that law. Contractors will then have to show how they will work to remove the vulnerability from the supply chain within a certain time frame.
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“We’re going to vet the lower [supply chain] tiers much more carefully, qualify trusted sources and hold contractors accountable when they hide the ball,” Navarro said.
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