Joe Biden Reveals $700 Billion ‘Buy American’ Campaign, Includes Spending On Electric Vehicles, 5G Networks
Former Vice President Joe Biden plans to reveal a multi-billion dollar plan, “The Buy American Campaign,” that aims to shore up American manufacturing and invest in technologies such as 5G cellular networks and electric vehicles, The New York Times reported. The plan is intended to challenge incumbent President Donald Trump on economic policy.
The keystone of the plan calls for a $400 billion increase, incrementally over the next four years, in U.S. government purchasing of American-made goods. As CNBC reported, already so-called “Buy American” laws are on the books that require government agencies to purchase American-made goods whenever possible. However, due to loopholes in those laws, they’re easily circumvented. Biden intends to tighten those laws.
Much of those purchases, including concrete and steel, would then be put to use in rebuilding infrastructure, such as roads and bridges.
The plan also calls for investments in underserved rural and urban communities that have sometimes been left out of federal spending programs.
“This will be the largest mobilization of public investments in procurement, infrastructure and (research and development) since World War II,” said Biden senior adviser Jake Sullivan.
Additionally, Biden’s plan calls for $300 billion to be invested in emerging technologies such as 5G cellular networks, artificial intelligence, and lightweight materials, according to The Hill.
In addition to increasing government spending, Biden’s plan promises to strengthen workers’ collective bargaining rights, and to repeal tax breaks for American companies that ship their jobs overseas.
On Wednesday, Biden addressed a union — the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers — and claimed that his administration will “take a monumental step forward for the prosperity, power, safety and dignity of all American workers.”
Further, the plan calls for tax breaks for small manufacturers, particularly those run by women and people of color.
As for America’s biggest economic competitor, China, Biden’s plan takes “aggressive trade enforcement actions [and] confront[s] foreign efforts to steal American intellectual property.”
Biden will officially unveil his plan at a metal works business in Dunmore, Pennsylvania, on Thursday.
Biden focusing on the economy signals that he’s not afraid to take on Trump in the one area in which the Democrat may be vulnerable. Though Biden leads Trump in polling both nationally and in key battleground states, the economy, which until the COVID-19 pandemic had been booming before being brought to a screeching halt, had been seen as a key Trump strength going into the 2020 election.
Biden intends to lay out four economic proposals, including Thursday’s “Buy American” initiative, in the coming weeks.
