‘Prices are going to go up’: Trade war threatens US weapon production

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military relies on a network of countries around the world to produce the sophisticated weapons and equipment that arm its warfighters. It imports missiles from Norway and specialized technology from France and Italy for fighter jets. It equips Army soldiers with a recoilless rifle produced by a Swedish company and depends on Canada to assemble combat vehicles such as the Stryker. “There’s not a single weapon system that I know of that doesn’t have some type of foreign content,” said Bill Greenwalt, a former Defense Department acquisition official now at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank.

The consequences for the military industrial base could be steep. A single F-35 contains 900 pounds of rare earths, a Virginia-class submarine contains 9,200 pounds of them and China processes 90% of the world’s rare earths supply.

“Even before the latest restrictions, the U.S. defense industrial base struggled with limited capacity and lacked the ability to scale up production to meet defense technology demands,” according to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. “Further bans on critical minerals inputs will only widen the gap, enabling China to strengthen its military capabilities more quickly than the United States.”

Complete Article:

‘Prices are going to go up’: Trade war threatens US weapon production

The U.S. military relies on a network of countries around the world to produce the sophisticated weapons and equipment that arm its warfighters.

www.stripes.com

 

[Margery]

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military relies on a network of countries around the world to produce the sophisticated weapons and equipment that arm its warfighters. It imports missiles from Norway and specialized technology from France and Italy for fighter jets. It equips Army soldiers with a recoilless rifle produced by a Swedish company and depends on Canada to assemble combat vehicles such as the Stryker. “There’s not a single weapon system that I know of that doesn’t have some type of foreign content,” said Bill Greenwalt, a former Defense Department acquisition official now at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank.

The consequences for the military industrial base could be steep. A single F-35 contains 900 pounds of rare earths, a Virginia-class submarine contains 9,200 pounds of them and China processes 90% of the world’s rare earths supply.

“Even before the latest restrictions, the U.S. defense industrial base struggled with limited capacity and lacked the ability to scale up production to meet defense technology demands,” according to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. “Further bans on critical minerals inputs will only widen the gap, enabling China to strengthen its military capabilities more quickly than the United States.”

Complete Article:

‘Prices are going to go up’: Trade war threatens US weapon production

The U.S. military relies on a network of countries around the world to produce the sophisticated weapons and equipment that arm its warfighters.

www.stripes.com

It's not just Defense dept equipment.

It's our cars (think of the computer chips and the rare earth stuff that goes into them) and everything else in our computer chip fuelled world.

The drones are the weapons of the future and whoever controls the manufacturing - controls the world. This is the problem in Yemen, where cheap drones are attacking, and expensive equipment is defending the ships in the Red Sea area. The Houthis' are at a tremendous advantage. Drones are cheap, all they need to do is bleed their enemy dry as they defend against the cheap drones. Thankfully the US military is striking the Houthis, but the rest of the world is oblivious to the need to turn Yemen into a glass uninhabited parking lot.

China is the source and refiner of the rare earths that go into chips, and they do chips and drones much cheaper than anyone else.

This needs a fast fix because sooner or later the US and China will face each other in the South China Sea, and there's no way China will be happy to provide parts to the US at any price.