As the incoming Biden administration announces its nominees for top roles, Pentagon observers say contractors should watch for some changed priorities -- but that supply chain policy will likely continue to be a focus.
During the Trump administration, Section 889 of the Fiscal Year 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, which prohibits the government from contracting with companies that use telecommunications and surveillance equipment made by Huawei, ZTE and other Chinese companies because of security concerns, went into effect.
Andy Howard, a partner at law firm Alston & Bird, told Inside Defense he doesn't expect the new administration to scale back that policy.
"I don't see that getting rolled back really in the slightest bit," he said. "There was so much analysis done about the security risk posed by some of that technology."
While domestic sourcing policy has often changed among administrations, Howard said Congress generally supports the idea of moving more manufacturing to the United States and that is unlikely to shift in a Biden administration.
Indeed, during a Nov. 16 speech, President-elect Biden said that "from autos to our stockpiles, we're going to buy American."
"No government contract will be given to companies that don't make their products here in America," he added.
In interviews with Inside Defense, Capitol Hill staffers said they expect the Biden administration to be bullish on supply chain policies. The fiscal year 2021 defense policy bill would set the stage for the incoming administration to pay more attention to defense supply chains, including through the elevation of the deputy assistant secretary of defense for industrial policy to a Senate-confirmed assistant secretary position.
"We have seen careful approaches from the acquisition and sustainment enterprise in the last four years," a House aide told Inside Defense regarding industrial policies. "I'm optimistic we're going to have a very thoughtful, skilled implementation in the coming years under the Biden administration."
Howard said there may also be policy tweaks from the Trump administration's approach.
"I think you'll see a bit more flexibility in understanding how supply chains work," he said. "Some supply chains are just incredibly complex, such as automobile manufacturing."
Tara Murphy Dougherty, who heads data firm Govini, told Inside Defense she expects a continued emphasis on "reshoring and bolstering supply chains."
"The supply chain focus and the particular vulnerability that the government felt under COVID . . . that's not going away," she said.
Wes Hallman of the National Defense Industrial Association told Inside Defense he hopes the Biden administration will leverage defense spending to help re-shore manufacturing.
"This is one way of looking at build back better," he said. In microelectronics, for example, "we still own the best IT, we still own the best designers, but . . . just about all the manufacturing is happening overseas."
Supply chain, Hallman added, could be the pandemic's "silver lining."
"It really brought to the fore -- not just for the government customer, but for these large integrators, et cetera -- what actually is the supply chain," he said. "I really see that as the silver lining and a bit of a wake-up call and, for me, that sense that we’ll maybe be able to reinvest in that supply chain is a good thing."
With additional reporting by Justin Doubleday