President Joe Biden returned to the state of Ohio Friday afternoon, where he touted manufacturing, a new 3D printing initiative and continued to push for passage of a bipartisan bill aimed at boosting semiconductor manufacturing and bolstering competition with China.
The president visited United Performance Metals in Hamilton, Ohio, to highlight the Additive Manufacturing Forward initiative announced earlier Friday, which will pair U.S.-based suppliers with large manufacturers to strengthen supply chains through 3D printing.
Biden said the new effort was part of a broader effort to strengthen domestic supply chains and increase critical goods sourced in the United States.
“You might ask: what does it matter to you at home? Well, I know you’re worried about the price of gas, food and other necessities,” he said. “Because the pandemic and the economic crisis that we inherited and Putin’s war in Ukraine have all shown the vulnerability when we become too reliant on things made overseas.”
The White House said GE Aviation, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Siemens Energy are the initial participants for AM Forward.
AM Forward would be boosted by the bipartisan, Senate-passed U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), which includes investments into 3D printing. During the trip, Biden once again urged Congress to pass the legislation, which aims to boost jobs and domestic manufacturing.
Both Ohio senators Rob Portman and Sherrod Brown have been working on the measure, and they sat behind the president as he spoke in Hamilton Friday.
“They did it in infrastructure. They’re doing it again in this. Let’s get this bipartisan Innovation Act to my desk,” he said. “Our jobs are coming home again. We’re making ‘Buy America’ a reality, not just a slogan.”
The House passed a slightly different version of the competition legislation, and it’s now in a conference committee between the two chambers to iron out differences.
USICA and the House’s COMPETES Act both aim to ease the shortage of semiconductors, which can delay production of life-saving medical devices, smartphones, video game consoles, laptops and other modern conveniences. If passed, it would pump $52 billion in grants and subsidies to the semiconductor industry to help boost U.S. production.
“The backbone of recovery is manufacturing. Manufacturing employment is up in America: 545,000 jobs since I took office,” Biden said. “And these manufacturing jobs matter because they fuel our economic growth. They fuel exports. And as we’ve seen, they can fuel innovation.”
The president also touted the bipartisan nature of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill passed last year, another piece of legislation that Sen. Portman helped lead.
“That bridge, if you really want to go to Kentucky, is going to get better,” he said to applause.
The semiconductor chip problem has been building since coronavirus pandemic-related lockdowns shut down major Asian chip factories more than two years ago. Now it could extend past this year, despite the semiconductor industry’s efforts to catch up with demand.
The bill also includes $8 billion for a fund that helps developing countries adjust to climate change, $3 billion for facilities to make the U.S. less reliant on Chinese solar components, $4 billion to help communities with significantly higher unemployment and $10.5 billion for states to stockpile drugs and medical equipment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
