Sec. 102. Strategy for promoting and strengthening nearshoring in the Western Hemisphere
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The Secretary of State, in coordination with the United States Agency for International Development and the United States International Development Finance Corporation, and the heads of all other relevant Federal departments and agencies, shall develop and implement a strategy to increase supply chain resiliency and security by promoting and strengthening nearshoring efforts to foster economic growth in the Americas and relocate supply chains from the People’s Republic of China to the Western Hemisphere. The strategy required under subsection
(a)shall— be informed by consultations with— the governments of allies and partners in the Western Hemisphere; and labor organizations, trade unions, and companies and other private sector enterprises in the United States; provide a description of how reshoring and nearshoring initiatives can be pursued in a complementary fashion to strengthen United States national interests, including an assessment of how nearshoring initiatives can expand opportunities for coproduction and other cooperative business ventures between United States and regional entities; include an assessment of the status and effectiveness of current efforts by regional governments, multilateral development banks, and the private sector to promote nearshoring to the Western Hemisphere, major challenges hindering such efforts, and how the United States can strengthen the effectiveness of such efforts; identify countries and sectors within Latin America and the Caribbean with comparative advantages for sourcing and manufacturing critical goods and countries with the greatest nearshoring opportunities; identify how activities by the United States Agency for International Development and the United States International Development Finance Corporation can effectively be leveraged to strengthen and promote nearshoring to Latin America and the Caribbean; require that the Department of the Treasury and the United States Trade and Development Agency work with United States firms to identify barriers that inhibit them from committing capital or financing projects and provide a description for how the United States Government can work with Latin American and Caribbean countries to address these barriers; advance diplomatic initiatives to secure specific national commitments by governments in Latin America and the Caribbean to undertake efforts to create favorable conditions for nearshoring in the region, including commitments to develop formalized national nearshoring strategies, address corruption and rule of law concerns, modernize digital and physical infrastructure, lower trade barriers, raise labor and environmental standards, improve ease of doing business, and finance and incentivize nearshoring initiatives; advance diplomatic initiatives to harmonize standards and regulations, especially among existing United States free trade partners, expedite customs operations, facilitate economic integration in the region, strengthen legal regimes and monitoring and enforcement measures relating to labor standards, and ensure that nearshoring initiatives are consistent with efforts to improve supply chain energy efficiency, reduce the energy used to transport global goods, and advance environmental sustainability; and develop and implement programs to finance, incentivize, or otherwise promote nearshoring to the Western Hemisphere in accordance with the findings made pursuant to paragraphs (3), (4), and (5), including, at minimum, programs to develop physical and digital infrastructure, promote transparency in procurement processes, provide technical assistance in implementing national nearshoring strategies, support capacity building to strengthen labor and environmental standards, mobilize private investment, and secure commitments by private entities to relocate supply chains from the People’s Republic of China to the Western Hemisphere. In implementing the strategy required under subsection (a), the Secretary of State and the heads of all other relevant Federal departments and agencies shall coordinate with the United States Executive Directors of the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank. As part of the effort described in this section, the Secretary of State shall prioritize Colombia. Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, and annually thereafter for a period of 5 years, the Secretary of State shall submit to the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate and the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives a report on the strategy required under subsection
(a)and progress made in its implementation.