United States

Decline in American Manufacturing and National Security

Julia Newman

There has been an overall national decline in manufacturing in the past five years. On September 22nd the National Security Oversight Committee looked at this decline and its effects on national security. This committee-meeting pane will discuss these trends and how to make American manufacturing more competitive in this market. With a decline in American manufacturing, the American Army has had to rely on foreign made products. In most cases, these products come from China at a cheaper cost, but with dubious workers rights behind them. In fact China’s manufacturing industry is on the brink of surpassing the United States’, due to the high demand for its cheap goods worldwide. Its is believed by some U.S. defense experts that many of these foreign made military products are not as well produced and are more prone to malfunction than their domestic counterparts, which may put Americans soldiers lives.

• Argument for: Foreign-made products are financially more competitive, which means the military can spend less.
• Argument against: The military is giving money oversees, and not into the struggling American economy. Some argue about the quality of the foreign manufacturing

Additional Reading:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/09/21/manufacturing.security/index.html?npt=NP1