The “Buy America” initiative that President Biden says will promote domestic manufacturing and fuel a blue-collar renaissance is running into a problem: The United States no longer produces many of the items needed to modernize roads, bridges and ports.

The $1 trillion infrastructure legislation that the president signed in late 2021, however, insists that U.S. materials be used.

This awkward dynamic spilled into public view this month, when the U.S. Department of Transportation denied a request by the nation’s ports to use federal infrastructure funds to purchase imported dock cranes, trucks, boat lifts and similar equipment, after industry officials argued that no domestic manufacturers exist for them. In particular, while some smaller cargo-handling units are made in the United States, all of the electric models that support the administration’s climate goals are made overseas, according to the American Association of Port Authorities.

[Who could have seen this coming? *think think think* Oh, most anyone. Trump was the first president to actively try to reverse that trend, Biden did his best to completely reverse Trump’s progress to the same the second he hit the Oval office and…here we are. ~ Beege]