EC 391 Newspaper articles on Supply Chains, Reshoring, Self Sufficiency, National Security

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/upshot/world-economy-restructuring-coronavirus.html?searchResultPosition=10

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/28/business/economy/biden-trump-made-in-usa.html?searchResultPosition=2

Here are 2 articles from the New York Times, the 1st by Neil Irwin from last April, the 2nd by Eduardo Porter from September.  Please read them and answer the following questions.

1.Are there critical products that countries should make at home and not rely on imports?  Food?  Oil?  Drugs, medical equipment like ventilators?  Steel?

2. Is this a strategy that middle sized economies like Turkey or South Korea can adopt?  Or middle income and poor countries like Colombia, Peru, and Pakistan?

3. Are there alternatives to being self sufficient?  What does the US do about oil?

4. Will multinationals change their supply chains after the pandemic?  Will they move production back to their home countries in the US, Europe, and Japan?  Or will they create multiple suppliers in different countries to avoid risks to one supplier from future pandemics, trade wars, or natural disasters like earthquakes?

5. Trump imposed and Biden has proposed tariffs or other taxes to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US from China and other developing countries.  What effects of Trumps tariffs does Porter mention?  Have these efforts been successful?  Are they likely to succeed in the future?

6. Why did the US trade balance and current account balance fall in July and later months this year?

7. Should the US worry about a threat to its national security from Chinas growing importance as a supplier of IT products like 5G networks?  Should China worry about a threat to its national security from the importance of US suppliers of IT products?