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Trump Wants Chinese Parts Out of American Weapons
DefenseOne ^

Posted on 10/07/2018 1:56:39 PM PDT by ameribbean expat

The Pentagon intends to invest in domestic manufacturing to reduce its over-reliance on Chinese and other foreign-made parts in American weapons, top defense officials said Thursday.

The U.S. reliance on China is one of many areas discussed in a 146-page report about the health of the defense industrial base that President Trump is scheduled to release on Friday during an event at the White House. Other areas include “accelerating workforce development efforts to grow domestic science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and critical trade skills.”

*****

The report says China is the only producer of various chemicals needed in missiles and bombs, Japan and European nations are the only suppliers of certain carbon fibers used in missiles, satellites, and space rockets; Germany is the prime supplier of special vacuum tubes for night vision goggles, it says.

(Excerpt) Read more at defenseone.com ...


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: manufacturing; redchina; trumpasia; trumpdod
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To: CincyRichieRich
Everyone involved in such decisions should be given cavity search equivalent interview to see if their employment with our armed services should be continued.

Gives a whole new ring to "enemies foreign and domestic" doesn't it?

21 posted on 10/07/2018 2:27:24 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: ameribbean expat

If a country can’t produce something then it’s natural to rely on others. This issue is something other countries take to heart on every product, including agriculture. Free trade was a globalist scam that left us empty


22 posted on 10/07/2018 2:28:29 PM PDT by ALX
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To: ameribbean expat

We need to identify our critical industries and protect them. For everything else we can be free traders but NOT chumps. To avoid being chumps we will use punitive/retaliatory tariffs as needed and without hesitation. When our trading partners play fair we’ll be free traders. But when they get selfish we’ll put the hammer down. This seems to be Trump’s vision and it makes perfect sense.


23 posted on 10/07/2018 2:28:55 PM PDT by Yardstick
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To: PIF
Who going to supply tungsten besides the Russians? Whose going to supply rare earths besides the Chinese?

There are tungsten mines in the eastern Sierras, closed of course but the tungsten is still there. Rare earth minerals may also be available here. Don’t know.

24 posted on 10/07/2018 2:32:08 PM PDT by broken_clock (Go Trump!)
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To: ameribbean expat

This a is a very good idea.


25 posted on 10/07/2018 2:39:31 PM PDT by Crucial
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To: broken_clock; PIF; ameribbean expat
Its not tungsten. Where the article says "China is the only producer of various chemicals needed in missiles and bombs", they are talking about rare earth minerals.

The major use of rare earths is for magnets used in small speakers and batteries for hand held tools like cordless drills and saws.

In years past, the closing of the rare earth mine in Mountain Pass California has been a popular subject at Free Republic but I have seen a thread on that subject in years, maybe a decade.

26 posted on 10/07/2018 2:48:56 PM PDT by Ben Ficklin
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To: broken_clock

Russia has the mother lode of tungsten. All of ours now come from them. We used to have the largest deposits of rare earths in the world - I believe on Montana or somewhere up there, but B. Clinton turned the land into a national park or some such at the behest of his Chinese ‘donors’.

Mining requires people to harvest the ore - but they also lost the War on Natural Resource Harvesters along with farmers, loggers, ranchers, and commercial fishermen.

Eat Plastic, Buy Chinese and Russian! MAaSHA


27 posted on 10/07/2018 2:50:45 PM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now it is your turn ...)
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To: Ben Ficklin

Yes I know what they are talking about. The point is we are dependent on the Russians and the Chinese for vital national defense, military, and scientific needs.


28 posted on 10/07/2018 2:52:57 PM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now it is your turn ...)
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To: ameribbean expat
MORE WINNING !!
29 posted on 10/07/2018 2:54:34 PM PDT by timestax
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To: ameribbean expat
there was a time when this was forbidden
30 posted on 10/07/2018 2:56:29 PM PDT by Chode ( WeÂ’re America, Bitch!)
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To: ameribbean expat

About time.


31 posted on 10/07/2018 2:57:20 PM PDT by Chgogal (Sessions recused himself for shaking an Ambassador's hand. Shameful!)
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To: Caipirabob
Only a damned traitor would have permitted this to begin with.

That why someone coined the phrase "Free Traitors".

32 posted on 10/07/2018 3:01:04 PM PDT by TwelveOfTwenty (Prayers for our country and President Trump)
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To: morphing libertarian

I remember stories in the 1980s of American companies sourcing cheap and fraudulent bolts, for instance, from overseas.


33 posted on 10/07/2018 3:02:38 PM PDT by Calvin Locke
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To: Caipirabob

Remember Clinton allowing the contract winner for the GPS guided bomb kits to have the fin solenoids made in China?


34 posted on 10/07/2018 3:03:47 PM PDT by Calvin Locke
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To: PIF

I get what you’re saying, but we should buy the raw materials and manufacture what we need here. We have the economic might to dictate these terms. If they don’t sell to us, then sanctions, and we dedicate our industrial and intellectual might to finding alternatives. We can be 90% self sufficient, relying only on trusted alies for the other 10%.


35 posted on 10/07/2018 3:11:48 PM PDT by ExpatCanuck (The)
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To: morphing libertarian; ZULU; bitt; vette6387; mazda77; SkyPilot; ransomnote; Liz; sheik yerbouty; ...

Get the Chinese out of manufacturing our pharmaceuticals ASAP. How do you know what’s in your medications being manufactured in China or other countries?? Valsartan anyone?


36 posted on 10/07/2018 3:12:01 PM PDT by ExTexasRedhead
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To: PIF

“We used to have the largest deposits of rare earths in the world - I believe on Montana or somewhere up there”

I believe the area you are referring to is near Lolo Pass on the border between Idaho and Montana. If its there, let’s go get it!


37 posted on 10/07/2018 3:14:26 PM PDT by 43north (Its hard to stop a man when he knows he's right and he keeps coming.)
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To: PIF

Don’t know about tungston—but the USA has plenty of rare earths. They’re just a bit more expensive than Chinese rare earths. For example, A big research effort is underway to extract rare earths from coal mine wastes.


38 posted on 10/07/2018 3:18:03 PM PDT by ckilmer
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To: Calvin Locke

I just redid my deck railings from conventional wood rails to horizontal cable wiring for a nautical look. I ran short on the hardware I got from Amazon and bought extra from Home Depot even though it was more expensive. The Amazon stuff has already started rusting only two years later. The Home Depot stuff is fine. Not endorsing Home Depot, it could well have been Lowes. Point being, it was just a deck railing, but if we’re buying this crap to put in our military and industrial and domestic grid systems, we are screwed. I can understand with simple domestic goods, but why would we rely on parts from potential enemies for critical military grade hardware. It’s like the Romans asking Attila The Hun for body armor just before a battle.


39 posted on 10/07/2018 3:28:16 PM PDT by ExpatCanuck (The)
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To: ckilmer

All the deposits worth mining were locked up in the 90s. They are too expensive to mine for what competitors can get more cheaply from China. Research ... don’t depend on it to solve the problem in any reasonable time or for any process to work commercially and efficiently for decades. US major deposits of rare earths need to be unlocked and large scale mining restarted.

Tungsten - US has almost zero. Russia exports all the metal for the rounds used by US mil’s small arms. Another wacko environmental issue - no lead and maybe shortly no depleted uranium rounds.


40 posted on 10/07/2018 3:29:11 PM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now it is your turn ...)
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