Should the US manufacture more of its own medical supplies in wake of coronavirus shortages?

The popular mythology of the Northwest is of a sleepy, remote corner of the planet only recently dragged into and connected with the global economy by our jets, computer software and coffee retailing.

The history, however, is a lot different and a lot messier, as the original natives can attest, to their dismay. The Northwest long figured into the global trading aspirations of various waves of Spanish, Russian, British and then American industrialists, merchants and settlers, back when the commodities lusted after were logs, fish, pelts and wheat.

Today the Northwest, especially the Puget Sound region, is a crucial cog and hub in the global economy, fully engaged in the trading of goods, services, ideas and people in an interconnected world.

How are we feeling about that these days?

Not too good, it would appear, and only part of that uneasiness is tied to something else being exchanged these days: the coronavirus.

This isn’t new. Even when travel was much slower and less prevalent, the triggers of pandemics proved adept at migrating via the channels of trade.

What COVID-19 has revealed as a byproduct of the social and economic chaos it has sown are shortages of certain items suddenly deemed essential and shortcomings in our capacity to make them.

This, too, is nothing new. Disasters and calamities always create and reveal shortages of items either needed for daily living (for which the usual logistics have been temporarily interrupted) or for warding off or repairing the damage from those catastrophes.

Such shortages and interruptions are an annoyance, but they’re also largely unavoidable. Keeping the economy in perfect balance between supply and demand is impossible, and maintaining large stockpiles of everything that might be in short supply once a disaster strikes can be wasteful.

Even the worries about whether the United States has stripped itself of too much manufacturing capacity and know-how in the short-term pursuit of cheaper goods are decades old.

But the confluence of events and the consequences this time are pushing the issue of American manufacturing onto that growing list with the heading, “If and when we ever get out of this, we’re going to do something about this.”

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, in a meeting (virtual, of course) of G20 ministers last week, laid out the coming debate.

“All countries are trying to get a handle on how best to support our economies, while also ensuring the non-disruption of supply chains that are necessary to deliver critical medical supplies and agricultural products for citizens,” he said. “Unfortunately, like others, we are learning in this crisis that over-dependence on other countries as a source of cheap medical products and supplies has created a strategic vulnerability to our economy. For the United States, we are encouraging diversification of supply chains and seeking to promote more manufacturing at home.”

To many Americans, such talk smacks of abundant unpleasant notions, including managed trade, managed competition, protectionism, central planning, industrial policy, tax incentives and choosing winners and losers, and they’re not wrong to get queasy about them, especially when they tend to reward the politically connected at the expense of the consumer.

As much as we like to believe in free trade and competitive markets (not central authorities) that let consumers choose, philosophical purity ends about the time the paycheck — or the supply of facemasks, or ventilators or medicines — does. A lot of Americans who used to make steel, cars, textiles or other core product of formerly industrial America have long harbored suspicions that the theory doesn’t work so neatly in practice. Now millions more Americans are being shoved into the camp of belief that this country ought to make more of what it consumes, and, if it takes some big-government-style market manipulation to accomplish that, so be it.

Some of that fervor will fade once the coronavirus does, but so far the microbe is showing no signs of an early departure. As the toll accumulates — not just in deaths and sickness but in jobs and companies that don’t come back — and the disruption to daily life stretches from days to weeks, the sentiment will at least linger that things need to change. It might even linger long and strong enough that the issue of decoupling our economy from China figures in the November election — hey, did anyone remember this is an election year?

It won’t happen immediately. American industry is exhibiting remarkable short-term nimbleness in pivoting to producing more of certain items in short supply, even complex ones like ventilators, but rebuilding a broad, sustainable industrial base means not just the facilities and the companies themselves but the technology and expertise behind the products and processes to make them. Then there’s the need for the people who can design, make and sell those products.

But it can be done. The response to the coronavirus crisis has, albeit on a small scale, demonstrated that. It might happen spontaneously or with some official nudges and encouragements. This might not be what you expected or planned for in terms of American industrial revival. But it’s the reality we’ve been handed by 40 years of an eroding industrial base and four months of this pandemic.

Might as well work with what we’ve got.